i did not think romney would necessarily bring it up himself in the debates because it would allow for a very muddy back and forth between the two men. in debates your most effective when you can make a clean shot. and resonate with voters. my predictions -- romney will repeat his claim that obama cut $700 billion from medicare. during the primaries, the republicans used to claim that obama funded his health-care plan with $500 billion in cuts. how did it balloon to $700 billion? a simple explanation. the congressional budget office is in a new estimate based on a different and later 10-year time line. republicans decided to pick the biggest number possible. medicare -- spending is not being reduced. $700 billion -- that comes from the difference over 10 years between anticipated medicare spending, what is known as the baseline, and changes the law makes to reduce spending.

medicare -- spending is not being reduced. $700 billion -- that comes from the difference over 10 years between anticipated medicare spending, what is known as the baseline, and changes the law makes to reduce spending. the statement -- that is mostly come out of health care providers, not medicare beneficiaries. the medicare actuary has raised significant doubts as to whether any cuts would take place. they are actually a bit onerous. according to the medicare trustees' report, propose reductions in spending actual strength in the long-term health of the medicare program. in fact, house republicans adopted many of the same cuts in their own budget. a point that bill clinton made rather effectively in his speech to the democratic convention. they argue that they devote savings to reforming medicare, not funding new entitlements. that is an important difference. both parties agree that controls are needed on medicare spending. but they disagree about the best path for. this claim by the republicans, i give it to pinocchios. obama will claim that are ryan's plan for medicare will

for seniors to pay $6,400 more a year to make up for cuts in the program. this is an old democratic attack that has been around for a while. the problem is it is based on an earlier version of ryan's plan. that is another thing i have given two pinocchios. people should always be aware of dire predictions far off in the future. the $6,400 figure refers to an analysis of cbo estimates of a different, less generous ryan plan that goes to the year 2022. they make no estimates of the new version, except to say that beneficiaries might face higher costs. the plan was changed in other ways too. it changed the option of traditional medicare. it also decided to set the feature growth rate for medicare to the same matter accused by obama in his budget so there would not be a difference there. a study published recently by a journal of the american medical association suggests the average cost to additional

medicare would be on the $800 more a year in the ryan plan if it had been in place in 2009. that is obviously significantly lower than $6,400. strangely, president obama was at the aarp last week, and he used the $6,400 figure, which appears in many of his ads. then he added something, that was in his original plan, i want to be fair, he modified it, because obviously there was a lot of push back from seniors on that idea. will have traditional medicare stand side-by-side with the voucher program, no current beneficiaries will be affected. it was so striking that he would undercut the message of his own ad. the headline on his remarks, "obama plays fact checker in chief." it was an interesting moment when the president, in effect, indicated his advertisements for using simplistic and out of date figures. i wonder if romney will call him out on it in the debate.

>> my third colleague, james drinkard, is at the associated press, where i started many years ago. jim, i am looking at the combined experience appear of covering washington, all the baloney that its issue here. we have among us more than a century of dealing with these kinds of issues. jim, your prediction. what are we going to hear in the debate? >> there is a pattern here. you can see that it follows the social science dictum that the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. as a wire service guy, i am not in the prognostication business, but i feel fairly safe going out on a limb in a couple of things today. eight months ago, in the state of the union speech, obama

issued an appeal to congress to spend more federal money on construction projects that would generate jobs. what he said was, take the money we are no longer spending at war. use half of the to pay down our debt. use the rest to do some nation building right here at home. we pointed out in a fact check that night the fallacy of that idea. the idea that some kind of budget surplus is going to be created when you stop the wars is fiscal fiction. those wars have been primarily financed by borrowing. if you stop the wars, you do not have new money, you just have less debt being added. it does not treat a pool of ready cash. on top of that, the supposed savings of this supposed peace dividend is inflated because it

is based on spending numbers that are extrapolated into the future that would come from the height of the intensity of the war and they do not follow the downward trend that it has been in reality. we pointed all that out in a fact check on a state of the union night. how does the administration react? three weeks later, the president issued a budget that claimed $850 billion in savings from the wind down of the wars and steered $230 billion of that highway construction. the president of the committee for responsible for budgets said the administration's logic was like a kid graduating from college who had financed most of his tuition with student loans and saying, wow, all that money, now i can spend it on something else.

the reality is that there is no money. you are stuck with a bunch of debt. we fact check the budget as well. fast forward to the acceptance speech in charlotte three weeks ago. obama barely changed the word. he said, i will use the money we are no longer spending on war to pay back the debt and put more people back to work. after two wars that have cost us thousands of lives and over $1 trillion, it is time to do nation-building right here at home. since obama used pretty much the same words, so did we in our fact check that night. we recycled what we had used. when we were asked to predict mistakes candidates would make again in the debate, this one seemed like pretty much in natural. even before today, actually, last friday, in woodbridge, virginia, obama said again that he wants to use or savings to pay down the debt and put people to work.

i think that is fair game for the debates if they go there. for romney, i have a prediction that i think is solid. it goes back to the title of his campaign book two years ago -- "no apology." ever since, romney has made a point to criticize obama every time he thinks there is any whiff of apology in something the president has said. i first heard it myself last april here in town, when romney was making a speech to a group of newspaper executives. he blamed obama for the anemic recovery and said, "obama's attention has been elsewhere. he was not focused enough on the economy. his attention had been on things like a government takeover of health care and apologizing for america abroad." in our fact check that day, we quoted what obama had said in

overseas trips, including an assertion that at times the u.s. had acted contrary to its own ideals or had been selective in where it sought to promote democracy. it had sometimes shown an arrogance toward allies. we pointed out that when he made those kinds of statements that suggested the u.s. is not completely above reproach, he usually balance it with praise for things the country had done right. all that -- that is in a long tradition of presidents acknowledging past imperfections. these cannot by any normal dictionaries amount to apologies. either formal or informal. again, last month, when romney

accepted his party's nomination, he repeated the assertion that obama had begun his presidency with an apology tour, and obama had confessed the u.s. had "dictated to other nations." that fact check story went into greater detail, pointing out that obama's trips to europe, latin america, to the muslim world during his first months in office, no indications were he had said the nation had made mistakes. in most of those cases, the context was a call for better relations with other countries after which he described as damage done by misguided moves by his predecessor, bush. so we fact check that. again, it did not seem to make a difference to the campaign. earlier this month, when that violence broke out at u.s. diplomatic outposts in libya and

egypt. romney jumped to accuse obama of disgraceful handling of the situation, including sympathizing with those who waged the attacks instead of condemning them and making a "apology for american principles." we fact checked that, and we pointed out that neither an unofficial statement from the cairo embassy nor statements from secretary of state hillary clinton nor obama's own statement contained any sympathy for the attackers if you read the plain language of them. the administration's condemnation of religious incitement on the anti-muslim from did not come anywhere close to being an apology by any definition. i have a feeling that romney stands ready to apply this overly broad definition of apology at any opportunity in the debates or during the endgame of the campaign.

>> thank you, jim. before i make my own prediction, i want to know something kind of remarkable happening in the last couple of days. both candidates have been asked and referred to fact checking, their reaction to it. we have a clip of what president obama said in a "60 minutes," interview. it was put up on the website of cbs. it was kind of interesting. >> the fact checkers have had problems with the ads on both sides, and city have been misleading and in some cases just not true. does that disturb you? some of them are your ads. >> do you see sometimes us going overboard in our campaign, mistakes that are made? areas where there is no doubt somebody could dispute how we are presenting things? that happens in politics. people't the american entitled to the truth? >> the truth of the matter is that most of the time we're having a vigorous debate about our visions for the country.

there is a lot at stake in this election, so is it going to be sharp sometimes? absolutely. people have a good sense of where i want to take the country, where governor romney -- >> so there you have the president saying, well, do we go overboard and make mistakes, that happens. yesterday, cnn was pressing mitt romney on the welfare matter. he made the statement that, well, whenever we have made mistakes or false claims, we have corrected them. are any of you aware of any corrective ads the romney campaign -- the romney campaign was not even when cnn pressed them for examples. they have not corrected anything -- romney seems to have stated that they have made some incorrect claims.

i think that the likelihood is that we will hear some twisted or false claims coming out because this is not unique to this particular campaign. this has been going on for a long time. we have pretty strong evidence that the greeks holding forth in the agora in athens, 2500 years ago, were pulling the wool over the eyes of voters even back then. at least with obama, as of we have heard, he is somewhat more circumspect when speaking in person about his new ones and some of the things you hear coming out of his ads.

in one case, he corrected or contradicted his own advertising. to make my predictions, i sort of threw darts at the claims they make in their stump speeches, romney and obama. we recently did takeouts on the standard speeches that they give. one from each side. i predicted it is quite likely that we will hear mitt romney say that gasoline prices have doubled under obama, which is an example of one of those things that is, yes, literally true if you look at where gasoline prices were when he took office. they have plummeted due to the world wide near-depression we suffered, but the fact is that they have never quite gotten as high under obama as they work for several weeks in the summer of 2008 under bush. i think we will also hear president obama say that we have created half a million

manufacturing jobs. he will drop his voice and say, in the last 29 months, which is of course not his entire administration. he measures of the point where things have bottomed. we have regained fewer than half of the more than 1 million manufacturing jobs that have been lost on his watch. that is a better way of putting it. not false claims, but claims that leave a false impression if you do not look at them. i think we hear a lot of that. i will ask if you hopefully provocative questions of our panelists to get the discussion going before we throw it open to questions from the audience. are their claims for any of you, that they have made in the past that we have found to be false or badly misleading the they are not going to repeat for some reason?

>> i feel fairly certain that we will not hear romney conflate the number of people who are bound to vote for obama, the number of people who do not pay federal income tax, and the number of people who receive some sort of federal benefit, that that is all the same 47%. i doubt we will hear that again. >> anybody want to disagree? >> probably not. i do not know if that -- it was for consumption by a very small public. those with big wallets. >> that gives you an important aspect of our fact checking. we focus on the big, national messages, but we know there is lots of micro-targeting going on that is using very precise media to hit very precise audiences. we are not seeing that.

we try, we asked readers to submit ideas through facebook and e-mail and what ever. we get a tiny portion of that. i think the case in point, this mailing i got from the romney campaign, maybe that is not going to be a message we hear romney assert at the debate, but it is clearly won the campaign is continuing to make. talk to campaign people, they will tell you, hey, you do not know about the ads you did not see that are running in tiny markets in ohio and florida and what ever. i think there are plenty of those. >> what i am wondering about -- we heard one example of the president being more careful about the facts when he was speaking in person than his campaign is when putting things out. i think probably we will not hear barack obama claim that mitt romney favors a ban on abortion even in cases of rape

or incest, a totally false claim and a misrepresentation of romney's overall stance. he has been consistent ever since he switched to -- to be in generally against abortion. he has not always had this position, but since he has adopted his present position, it has been clear. he has favored the usual exceptions. the obama campaign has in two tv ads repeated this utterly false claim. i do not think we would hear that out of the mouth of the president. do you share my view that the candidates are more circumspect in person than they are -- and their campaigns are in advertising? or is it just the president, not mitt romney? what do you think?

>> particularly in a high- stakes situation like a debate, we are talking about the debates, i think it will be more circumspect. i cannot offhand think of a claim that they would or would not say, but it a whole different matter when you are right next to that person and they are able to respond and say, actually -- you saw during the campaign debates that there were moments when they would turn to each other and say, you got four pinocchios for that. that was pants on fire. you do not want to get into a situation where you are exposed in that way, particularly with the internet, people can quickly look these things up. i noted that when one of them said, you got four pinocchios about that claim, the next day i had tens of thousands of hits. people had gone to the web and looked up what newt gingrich was talking about. >> another question --

recently, one of mitt romney's operatives made the statement to reporters when they were pushing him on the claim about welfare. we will keep running that, we will not have our campaign did but -- dictated by fact checkers. probably a lot of news people were shocked by the cynicism they heard coming out of his mouth. jim, you have been around the longest -- did this surprise you? >> i really cannot say that i was. they had kind of behave that way all along. they were certainly not terribly worried enough to change the rhetoric when something is pointed out to them. >> you mean the romney campaign? >> yes. i do not see a lot of evidence of trimming statements back to make a more accurate when they are repeated -- >> i do not know about that. this is -- my take on this, in

the context of that question and answer, they were saying that this is the most effective ad. they said, that got four pinocchios. the response was, we are not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact checkers. what he means by that, politicians in both parties will stretch the truth if they feel it will give them a political advantage. if that is the most effective ad, it does not matter what a bunch of nitpicking journalists might say about it. that ad moves people and has an impact. i have seen both obama and romney suddenly tweak or change or drop language called out by fact checkers. ultimately, there was a decision there that it does not mean that much to us if we fix

this. we will get less grief if we treat it a bit or change it on the margins, but the key things that move voters, such as, he apologizes for america or obama with that ridiculous thing about savings from the wars, and in the same breath he criticizes george w. bush for running wars on a credit card. he will say those on this one sentence after another without any sense he is contradicting himself. there is pulling there that says that is an effective line and moves voters. it does not matter what the actual facts are. that is when -- >> in that statement, he also said, fact checkers come to this with their own sense of thoughts and ideas and backgrounds. he is trying to redefine what a fact is. he is saying, there are no

objective facts. it is to somebody else's opinion about what we are saying. it is kind of like redefining apology. they are redefining what effect is. >> i do not want to be unfair to romney. my own view is that the attitude on the part of the obama campaign and the romney campaign was pretty much the equivalent. the surprising thing was that somebody from either campaign said it out loud. shocked news editors who had not been paying all that much attention previously. are the differences? to any of you see differences in the attitudes of the campaign apparatus is? >> i think what jim said about the no apology theme is the same thing applies for obama. campaigns are about themes and messages. the campaigns have decided that these are the five or six or however many things we are going to hit. we are going to have done repeatedly with as much evidence as they can muster.

at some point, they have got to stretch the truth to make this point. both of them are doing it. we talk about abortion -- the interesting, here is how i could see the abortion one playing out. i think obama, i am sure, recognizes romney's current position on abortion, but i could see an exchange returns to romney and says, now, you did support the personhood amendment. could that not have the impact of outline all abortions, and put romney on the defensive and score the points they want to score and remain in the facts on that. of course, that is how they have tried to connect the dots on abortion, by taking romney's position there. i think it is all about themes. they have their themes and will keep hitting them. in some cases they have got to connect the dots that really are not there. >> do you see places were either campaign has paid a price for misrepresenting facts?

>> it was pointed out, it was not for public consumption, but the conflation of those groups, there was a serious -- >> but for general consumption -- tv advertising, applause lines in the stump speeches, that sort of thing. >> i do not know. that is kind of depressing. >> if you follow the reaction we get -- >> in votes, or in the polls. campaign money, something that matters. >> you do have a control group or anything that you can tell that. i say, i do not write for politicians.

i write for voters and try to make them better informed. politicians will react to voters. if voters decide it will extract a price when a politician has not been honest, then politician behavior will change. but because we read a bunch of statements that were not correct and they would have paid the price, i do not know. i did one thing on romney -- for a long time in his stump speech he would say the united states was the only country on earth where we put our hands over our hearts when we sing our national anthem, which was quickly disproved by just looking on youtube. people around the world going like this and singing their national anthem. he dropped at the very next day. he never said it again. >> he paid the price. >> maybe. >> i would say that is an example of actually changing behavior, which i think happens rarely and in small increments. >> i think the other thing we

were talking about before the panel with brendan, the other thing we do not know, how many conversations are going on with campaign message people, with people making ads, with speechwriters, they are talking about wording. how often are they saying, if we say that, the fact checkers will get us? i suspect that is happening a lot. the only evidence i have of that is a column written by connie schultz, who is married to sherrod brown, who says that happens in the brown campaign. i suspect that is happening in many campaigns. there is so much fact checking going on, not just with our

organizations, but with others. we have partners in 11 states. there are newspapers and website around the country doing fact checking. there are a lot of eyes out there. >> that suggest, if things are that closely vetted and mauled over before they are said, especially speeches at the conventions, when they come out and repeat things that they know are going to the fact that again, that suggests there is no price. they have concluded that the price is so small that they are willing to -- >> there may be a price, but it is balanced against the fact that it is a tested and the fact of life that moves voters. you do a cost-benefit analysis, like anything in life, the benefits quickly away the costs of yet another column in "the washington post" or the associated press that says there is no money there your saving from ending the war. >> sometimes i am struck by the aggressiveness of the ads, compared to what comes out of the candidates' mouths. do you see a difference in the

attitudes of the operatives grinding out these ads, when they then have a little video of the candidate saying their approval of this when they have not even seen it? are the candidates even in charge? >> the super pac's -- i did have a conversation with one guy who runs a super pac. this was after he was screaming at me about something i had written. he just laughed and said, you know, i actually do not care about what you say, because these ads work. he said, these ads work. they move voters.

so what? i do not care what you are right. give me as many pinocchios as you want. these things work. he was very up front about that. >> some observers have suggested that campaign staffs now see it almost as a badge of honor to be called out by one of us or all of us, showing that they are tough and getting the job done. has it gotten that bad, do you think, is there that much cynicism in the campaign operation? >> judging from the complaints we get when we write these things, i would say they still care about us. to some extent. they may not think the price is affordable, but we certainly get push back when they think they have been treated unfairly. >> talked about that one point. talk about post-modern truth or whatever.

you can look at a set of facts and draw a different conclusion. there are times and we have looked at the same set of facts and do not come to the same conclusion. some of the push back to get from the campaign's, they say, you may think that is factually inaccurate, but we think that is factually accurate. who are you to sit in a judgment? >> the welfare ad is a good example. there is a strong current on the republican side that says that this looks -- there is no trust here. this looks like an attempt to undermine the work requirement in the current law. we are sort of being asked to fact check the future here. because it has not happened yet. you cannot read people's intentions.

you have to listen to what people say. what they put on paper. what they have outlined. make some judgments about it. we will not know until the waivers are implemented, exactly how they are to be used. >> well, we now have some time for questions from you in the audience. if you would like to know how we go about our business. please identify yourself and give us your question. wait until the microphone comes. >> high. i have been working with the league of women voters in a

project to help support tv stations when they do this. one of the things we are beginning to hear back from some of the television stations around the country is they do not have the resources to fact check. they have turned around and said, can you help us? we have obviously noted the work you have, but many of these television stations and to some degree newspapers are saying they do not have the resources to do the fact checking they would like to do or we would like them to do. particularly in this new economy. how you respond to those tv stations or to those newspapers to say, yes, we would like to do this, but we do not have the resources? >> let me first say we have partnered with primarily newspapers, but also with public radio in 11 states. we have found a very successful way to scale fact checking. we now have 11 state politifact sites where we have trained journalists at newspapers and new hampshire public radio how to do fact checking. they do it. it does not have to be a big

organization. they do not have to put up multiple people. our smallest partner is the "nashua telegraph," a newspaper with about a circulation of 17,000, and they do great fact checking on the leaders of new hampshire. we have 36 full-time fact checkers around the country. we've talked to tv stations. none have been willing to make a commitment to it yet, but i can see that happening. tell them to call me. >> also, sort of a partial answer -- when campaigns put out new ads, the ap tries to look at them and do what we call an ad watch. it is a fact check version just for television ads. we try to do those in the first day or two after a new ad comes

out. we cannot do all of them, but if an ad happens -- they are dealing with happens to be one of those, there may be some resources on the wire. if they are micro-targeted ads we are not even seeing -- we only treat the ones we see that look like they will get wide distribution around the country. generally the ones going into the battleground states. those are available. >> the only thing i would add -- i am not an empire builder like bill is here. i think obviously those stations to have reporters that cover politics. there is nothing that says you need to have a dedicated fact checker operation. if you are covering politics, you should be able to set aside some time to say, ok, let me that what the candidate has been saying.

when i was covering the 1996 presidential election, i came up with an idea to fact check what dole and clinton were saying. i came up with time to lay it out -- it was on the eve of the debate. this is what is true and is not true. they have the resources. it does have to figure out how to take those people and deploy them effectively. >> i have two quick observations. it does not take a huge staff, for one thing. you have the resources of all the fact checkers up here before you, and others in the media doing these sorts of things. anybody who wants to do this sort of thing at the local level can draw on an awful lot of work that has already been done just by reading what is up on our side. when i started, when kathleen

brought me over to the annenberg center from cnn, i was doing this by myself with the assistance of one researcher and later two in the 2004 election. we have expanded -- we now have 5 full-time journalists besides myself for this election. it needs to be a smart, good reporter who has been around the track to times and has been applied to and can recognize the sort of thing and deal with it. you do not want to give this to the latest new hire out of journalism school, but my second observation is, ask the station manager how much money they are getting from the political ads that are running on their stations and why they

do not devote half of 1% of their profit to telling people that the stuff they are feeding the public is not necessarily true. what is their moral obligation there? maybe they do not have a big staff, but it is not as if they are not making pools of money on these false ads. if they have the money resources, it is just a matter of how they choose to deploy than. >> other questions? >> from the national institute of civil discourse. jim started with the example of how effective it has been, the 47% of people not paying income tax, that is falling out of speeches. you brought in micro-targeting. this particular fact, in terms of responses we get from the public, has clearly stuck. people are repeating it -- ordinary people, not media. my question is, given this campaign consultants -- every

cycle, their goal is how to get more and more sophisticated about micro-targeting. in this campaign, with so few undecided voters, i wonder if you are collectively starting to think about how to take fact checking into the micro- targeting area, particularly at this late stage in the campaign? >> i think the challenge is to find out what those messages are. if the campaigns are using social media in very targeted way, it is not been seen by us. it is a tv ad only airing in a small market in florida, there may be nobody there who thinks to say, hey, politifact florida, why don't you look into that? in a small market in florida, there may be no one there who thinks to say, why do you not look into that? so i think that is an aspect

where we can build, i think, some crowd-sourcing network that highlights. we will get a little bit of feedback, but it has not yielded the great response that we would like, but i think that crowd-sourcing is it maybe. >> we had something called spin detectors, with a box on our home page, and we have been asking for people to send us examples of this sort of thing, and that if they get targeted mailings, robocalls, what are they seeing in their inboxes that gets sent to them, but he is right. they do not send these things to reporters. it is not like they are putting

it on a television station, where it can be monitored, and we can see every ad that they put on, but there is a huge potential for flying under the radar, and telling targeted groups of voters the things that are not true. i do not know that it is going on. i assume it is going on to some degree. how great of a degree, i do not know. limited success. if anyone who is listening has seen something like this, let us know. one of the challenges, too, my experience in covering these sorts of things for a long time is that these tend to flood in in the last few weeks. the money gets spent on these big postcards. your inbox just fills up with these things in the last weeks of the election, and that makes

it very difficult for us to parse through these things and do any sort of pushback before the election, but we would like to do it, and we would like to do more than we are doing. jim, do you have any thoughts on that? the micro-targeting, or targeting in general? >> there are all sorts of things that you can plop into. i have gotten a few. not as many as i had liked. if you are out there, we are open for business. >> you can take part in this in that what we have seen in the

targeted messages, they are basically repetitions of the same stuff we have already debunked, so i think we are saved by the limited imaginations of the people that are putting these messages out. in the back? >> i am michael, with "time" magazine. i am wondering if you could make any quantitative or qualitative judgment on whether this campaign has been more -- whether this is something that should be -- whether voters should, as an enforcement mechanism, whether they should have an idea of whether this campaign is breaking the rules on the honesty and truth -- >> the answer is no. i do not know any objective way to measure that, so we would not even try.

even if we could come up with a scholarly, academic way to say that one candidate is being more deceptive than another, i think we probably would not, just because it would look like we are endorsing the other candidate, and it would limit our ability to persuade people of what the facts are. do you have a different opinion? >> i would agree, and it is a really tough thing. first of all, some of us have methods of trying to quantify the depths of the falsehoods, but it is a real continuum. there are a lot of misdemeanors as well as the felonies that go on, and how to devise some kind

of a rating system for that -- the other thing is, you only fact check things that you see, and we try to fact check the things that are either the most widespread or the most egregious or the most interesting or the most clear- cut, so that leaves out some things. there is a lot of squishiness in intending to quantify it. >> i agree. i am not going to pick something that is stupid and silly, but i want to find a way to help people understand more about the budget or the health- care system. then that is something i will focus on, as opposed to something that is more of a slip of the tongue or something like that. politicians in both political parties will stretch the truth if it is in their political

interest. there is no difference between the two on that score. maybe you can try to lay out that, oh, this particular candidate was more egregious in this campaign, but overall, if they think they can get away with it, they will stretch the truth, and it does not matter who they are or what political party they are with. it is just the way it is. >> i think the best thing to do is to focus on journalism, to fact check them and do the best journalism we can. we actually go the farthest of

any of the four of us. politifact has a rating. we tally those ratings because our readers ask for it, but that is as far as we go. what is interesting, and i do not put a lot of stock in it, but it is fun to see what people do with our work. there is a guy in ohio that has a word in it that i cannot say on c-span, it begins "who is more full of," and i am not sure how revealing that is.

>> the average pinocchio ratings, it gives an average. again, it is a little self selective in terms of what we look at. between obama and romney, and they are both in the two range. michele bachmann -- i do not know what it necessarily tells

you, but it is sort of a fun thing to look at. it does provide you links to every single fact check that i or my colleagues have done for the candidates. >> excuse me. >> good morning. david, george mason university. i think we have seen in the campaign so far that both candidates are in the position of being challenged. flip-plopped positions. i have noticed so far that both governor romney and president obama, when challenged by a voter or a journalist, it is not to say, "well, the facts have changed at the facts are

different. the facts i look at now are not the facts that existed when that was my belief." instead, there are levels of equivocation or bluff. i think one latino group challenged him on keeping the promise of immigration reform that he intended to make. right then and there, i was hoping the president would say, "well, the picture is different. let's look get it imperatively." instead, it was something like, "i meant i would try." why do they just cannot say that the facts have changed when it challenged on flip-flops? >> the obama promises, and the extent to which he has kept them or is working on them or has reneged on them, maybe you

have got the most updated to respond to that. >> yes, we have a feature called the obameter, and it will be much easier next time. my sense is, one, i do not believe they get asked directly about these things, and it may not be that the facts have changed, more the calculation. if you look at health care, for example, there were promises he made about prescription drugs or medicare, allowing medicare to negotiate prices, things that he sacrificed as part of a deal to get the support of pharma, but i do not know if the white house has ever said that on the

record. "hey, we made a calculation. we are going to sacrifice of those two," and some are broken because of gridlock in congress, others broken because the white house made a calculation, "hey, we are going to go for something else instead." >> there was one statement where he was not correct at all. in fact, we gave him two pinocchios. it was a difficult thing for him to answer, which would of been among the minds of what you're talking about with the health-care bill. "immigration reform was just not high on my list of what i

wanted to do." instead, he portrays himself as a superman who could bound several buildings at a time but just could not do that one. >> next question. >> "the weekly standard." i want to pick on bill first. i am curious, because they have done a few studies. these are pretty easy to quantify. there was a study last year that found that republicans were at a rate of 3-1 over democrats, and i think there was a george mason university study that found it republicans to

democrats 2-1. regardless of how they come down in the rulings. that, to me, it suggests that fact checkers have a partisan agenda that they bring to the table. it was not that he was going to go whole hog on something. >> i am not sure i would agree that they have been singled out. did not show we had looked at about the same number of democrats as republicans? i do not find the "hey, you, give my team" -- someone came up to me to say that there was

bias against tim kaine, the democrats, and then about a week later, it was said about unfairly targeting republicans. i think what we do is disruptive to the status quo. we are easier to analyze because of our unique structure, but i do not find the numerical count analysis to be particularly persuasive. if you have a substantive questions about something we have done, -- if you have substantive questions about something we have done, we are

happy to look at it. this is journalism. we are not randomly selecting things. >> just to follow on that, the way i do this is that i do not really look at who is saying the statement when i evaluate it, and i give a running tally. "here is how many democrats i have looked at. here are the republicans i have looked at. here are the averages." but i do not really look at it when i go out and fact check, and the interesting thing is, just in terms of the reader response, i would say it breaks down roughly three ways. one-third of the people kind of like what i do and send me nice and notes. one-third of the people think i

am just a screaming conservative and cannot imagine why i am working at "the washington post," and one-third say i am a crazy, liberal hack that is simply doing the bid of the democrats, and it goes through cycles. brooks and i were slaughtered by democrats when we were raising serious questions about the obama campaign's comments about the timeline of when romney worked for bain. i do not know if this is your experience, but democrats tend to be more angry and more upset about some of the things that i

write. i think they believe the myth of the liberal media. >> a couple of things. i think, in a lot of ways, what we were right -- we try to come at this dispassionately. people either criticize what you have written or are loving it. invariably, someone who reads a fact check that may be critical of their candidate says, "there you go again.

you never fact check the other side," but we do. i also think when you have a scale to rate things on, you invite some of the numerical analyses. we are not trying to create something that is able to be analyzed in that way. we are not trying to create something that is able to be analyzed in that way. we are in a year that has been dominated by a primary season where only one party had a primary, and they had 21 or 22

debates. that is going to produce a certain number of fact checks. there were debates in january. >> are you done, jim? jim's observations are correct. when i first started factcheck.org, this was late 2003, we went live late in 2003, in the middle of the democratic primary process, they were all about democrats, because george bush was wisely keeping his mouth shut while howard dean and others savaged each other and told horrible falsehoods about each other. when we defend one republican against a falsehood said by another republican -- i have not rejected the idea that we are

singling out either party for undue attention. if not, rachel maddow -- what he has said about liberals. what we do -- if i would fire a reporter for turning copy -- we look at all of the statements we possibly can. we love to debunk false claims. i think "the weekly standard" would agree. when we look at civil rights, it should be not about the quality of results. it might reflect that there is a republican primary going on, or it might reflect the fact that they are failing the same

journalistic standards. i think this varies over time. that is just a false logic. i do not know that it is 3 to 1, and i do not know the time you're talking about. some of that is republicans criticizing other republicans. it is certainly not three to one on our side. other questions? we have two here, if we can get the microphone over to the table in front of the cameras. i am keeping her hopping here. >> i am michael, and given what we have just heard about people choosing to believe their side

or their candidate or their team of people that believe they are objective journalists, and i count myself among them, and i do not believe that many voters believe that being a liar is a disqualifying traits. what are you guys seeing? what can happen on the ground because of fact checking? >> kathleen alluded to this earlier. there is some modification in behavior. i have not been aware of very much of that myself. i do not think what we do should be measured by the fact we have on candidates. there is too much for them to say what they need to to get

elected. the campaigns are not public policy seminars. they are going to do what politicians have been doing for centuries. where i think we can have some effect, and i think where the evidence is coming out today that there is some effect, we can help those voters that care, and a lot of them do not. they are just going to vote for their person, no matter what, and they do not want to hear it, whether the candidate is saying something wrong -- that is fine. and you will hear more about this later. i think what the data is showing is that those who click into some sort of fact checking web site have better knowledge of what the issues are than those that do not. i think that is good for

democracy. i think some of these results are pretty depressing about the general level of ignorance. they are exacerbating that rather than helping it in some cases, so we provide something of an antidote for that. that is my view. do you add to that? rebuttals? >> i write for voters, not politicians, and a large part of what i try to do, while i have these funny little pinocchios, my main goal is to inform people about major issues that confront this nation, and i provide lots of links to other research so people can go off on their own and troll through the data. some people say, "how can you say that is three pinocchios? that is one." if they go out on their own and learn more about the issues that confront our country, then

i think it is a huge success. you look at the data of what americans think, how much money is made up of foreign assistance, i thinking it is 50% is foreign assistance, there is -- i think it is 50% foreign assistance, there is much more to be done. >> i want to hear about the use of websites and emails. our students are reading these, and the emails are fired off immediately after a convention speech or a speech somewhere, saying, "look what obama said. we want more money. let's not continue with this presidency." the curious who are interested in politics and news junkies,

there are millions who are getting news this way, and i wonder if you are making any effort? >> it is a matter of triage. we tend to look at the things we think are getting the widest exposure, which means a lot of it is things on television, either advertisements or speeches or major events, news conferences. the kinds of communications you are talking about that parties send to their adherents, they are cheerleading. so it is no surprise that they may play absolutes with the facts on those things, and they are going to people. i suppose we could get into the business of fact checking those, but with limited

resources, we tend to want to look at things that are said in an atmosphere where at least there is some pretense of objectivity and where it is going to go into a broad and general audience. >> i look at viral facebook posts, that either one side or the other has done. there was something based on something that the policy people put out. it had a cockamamie metric.

." --

showing that obama had increased than the past presidents. it was all over facebook. it exploded among democrats. i think i ended up giving that four pinocchio's. that became viral. [laughter] i think those things, we have occasionally looked at graphic elements that either campaign has put on the -- on the websites. assertions of fact which we are wanting in both cases. >> we try to do a lot of those, particularly on facebook, because in a similar way it

came -- e-mails became a way to transmit a lot of fake information, the facebook posts, call jpeg propaganda, much of it is exaggerated or inaccurate. it is tough. the trio as we have to go through every day, and this gets to the challenge of, on any given day, there are probably 50 or 60 or 100 things we could check. we have four fact checkers. so we have to be selective. lately, we focused almost entirely on the presidential campaign messages. but there are a whole bunch of interesting senate races we are on able to fact that. we would love to fact check some

of the claims there. we just have not had the staff. >> i think a question when to e- mails sent by the campaign staffs, a particularly. we have a whole section he devoted to viral e-mails. some of the stuff is amazingly delusional and we cannot resist going after it. i agree. we signed up and we get the mails sent out to the supporters. they tend to be the same messages over and over again that gets debunked. sometimes, they go over the top. just the other day, we got from the romney campaign, i do not know what they were thinking, after the fed and then denied he held a news conference saying they would go through another round of quantitative easing, here goes a message to donors, "barack obama is at it again,

spending your tax dollars." two things about that. the fed is reducing the deficit. they are making huge profits, returning record amounts of money to the treasury. , the opposite of spending your tax dollars is true. the fed is legally independent and run by a guy who is appointed by george w. bush. it is so completely over the top that we decided we had to do a piece on that particular e- mailed. pretty much these messages to true believers have to exceed what we have already debunked before we pay attention to it. >> we are out of time. thank you for your attention. we appreciate your questions. [applause]

>> please take your seats. 30 seconds. this fact checking futile or fruitful? a doctoral student. see will ask the question, can misinformation affect attitudes even when questions -- corrections work. how can journalists increase the likelihood that fax will win out? the third presenter, staff member, asks, does stand-alone

the fact checking work or doesn't backfire as a result of a controlled experiment? then, we will be showed an journalism that fact checks. we will reserve 20 minutes for questioning at the end. emily. >> hello. i will talk about the ideal world we all wish happened. this is when politicians make a false claim and those claims are corrected immediately and the corrections work. we think we would wish that what happened. that is what we are aiming at. i ran an experiment in which i created this idea world. in print journalism, i give people a false claim, then i correct that claim, and it is completely successful. i showed that even then, the

misinformation still has a lingering effect on attitudes. mi think a lot of you intuitively sense this takes place. the example is a dream. if you have a dream of a co- worker being unkind to you, you wake up in the morning that you know this is a dream, but you feel a little bit off toward them. you have a lingering effect of the tree and you have, even though you intellectually know if this falls. the same thing happens when you read misinformation about a candidate. i didn't online experiment with about six other participants. i will show you the argument in a minute. my central question is, do believe echoes exist? it continues to affect attitudes

after is successfully corrected. all of these read the exact same newspaper. this is an article about a congressional race. john mckenna is pictured here with robert downey jr.. when there is a celebrity news article, people pay more attention. the iowa ledger is not a real paper. he is not a real candidate. we are not very familiar with iowa politics and i would journalism. people read this thinking it was true. for half of the respondents, i want to emphasize he was described as a democrat and half and he was described as a republican. we wanted to make sure these exist even if the of the mission goes against what you wish was true. next slide. all of these groups read the

exact same article, with one small change. the first group, at -- it had a false claim not corrected. the second, the article had the same false claim but immediately after, it had a retraction. the third group, read the same article without the in -- without the misinformation or the correction. this is a typical piece of information you see in a campaign. this was a bad guy. he ran and i was drug rain. he was convicted of first-degree murder. this is a very negative claim. next slide. the correction, which was only read by the correction misinformation group, said further investigation -- we buried it, and i do not talk

about the results of this here, but those of you who work for fact checking organizations would know that getthefacts. org was just as good at the correction. it was convincing. after reading the article, all of our participants evaluated the canada -- the candidate. then, answered questions about what they read. this is critical so that we no correction actually work. you run a newspaper story about a congressional race, knowing what you know now, tell us what the statements -- which of these statements are true. most importantly, did the correction work?

the uncorrected misinformation group ranges from the bottom, definitely falls, to the top, definitely true. the question is, did john except campaign donations from a convicted felon. the uncorrected are pretty sure he did. they never saw a correction. the next slide, no information. probably false. the corrected misinformation also think it is false. they believe a correction and i do not think he is accepted donations from a convicted felon. backslide. this is a critical one. this is to see the effect on attitudes. on the y axis, the evaluation of john mckenna. people in the uncorrected misinformation group rated him about a five. in the no misinformation group who never saw the misinformation rated him a lot higher.

what we think should work or should be happening is when corrections actually work and are accepted by people, they should get rid of any attitude of facts. but we want is for that, metal bar to the right at the same place of the people who never saw the misinformation. we want the correction to river people back to their state. next slide, what we find is that not the case. freshens make a difference, they do bring out attitudes back up, but not all the way. in that gap, it is a belief at all. i am showing you the results of one experiment. this is consistent across a lot of experiments. it is interestingly identical whether the canada -- candidate is of your party or not. this happens even if you are on the same side. that slide. what are the implications?

corrections to erase some of the effect on misinformation -- of misinformation. they do help. the problem as they did not erase all of them. one thing to take away from mrs. that publicizing false claims, pushing false claims on the people who might not otherwise see them can actually have these unintended consequences of crating believe echos. the other implication or the lesson from here is, what do you do about this? i am not showing you a lot of the other experiments i have done about why this takes place, but one of the reasons is that people are not great at processing statements like, john did not accept a campaign donation. what they hear is, campaign donation. helen. one way to get around this is to say, i am an outstanding citizen.

upstanding citizen.ze thank you. [applause] >> thank you. i am a recovering fact checker. i used to be one of the editors of website. i am a political scientist at a college. i frequently read about coverage of misinformation. what i will try to do is bring all those different areas to work together for you today and briefly outline how i think journalists can do a better job of covering misinformation in a way that does not inadvertently reenforce the misperceptions that reporters are trying to debunk. i think the best place to start with that is to say that it is essential the coverage emphasize cts.

it is important to put the truth in the foreground because claims can become quite familiar to people. as you cover them, even if you are actually saying it is not true. this effect has been shown in psychology literal -- -- literature. we think of them as true simply by virtue of their familiarity. if we keep repeating -- repeating clans over and over, people say maybe there is something to it. they keep hearing yet. it is around. it is out there. maybe there is something to it. i will show you some examples of this in real coverage of this campaign. it is a problem that cropped up again and again. a particular subset of that is family mentioned. it is more effective to say barack obama was born in this

country than to say it barack obama was not born in kenya. if you say that enough times, people start to remember something about that obama being born in kenya. our brains have a tough time turning off false and permission. just putting the not or saying it is false is not enough. it is difficult for people to offset those effect. -- effects. another problem i want to draw attention to is he said, she said reporting. treating the statements as simple matters of opinion, disputes between two sides. clear sky is blue, purple, who knows?

there is still a long way to go. that coverage has two problems. cursed, it may increase -- first, it may increase familiarity. second, it has incentives for politicians to know they can make false claims and a lot of reporters may simply cover it as a matter of opinion or a simple partisan dispute. one last recommendation before i show examples, i have argued before -- for what i call naming and shaming. to reverse those replicate -- those incentives. it is important for journalists to call up politicians and commentators to make false claims, identify them and say this is a violation of standards of public debate. that is something we do not see enough of.

his offer -- awkward for some journalists to do that because it seems not the objective. but i think there is an ethical case for that sort of a journalism. next slide. here is an example of what not to i hate to pick on our friends politico. they have some wonderful reporters at work that is not so strong. this is an example of the latter. this is the article about the controversial arizona sheriff claiming to have discovered evidence that president obama's burst of it is false back in march. this claim has been widely be blocked by -- but you would not know it by the way the story is covered. if you look to the headline, you will see the reporter laying out in a pretty unquestioning

way the case. it goes through the whole case. only in the seventh paragraph does the reporter get around to saying this has been widely debunked. your average reader who is not reading these things like a scholar is maybe going to come away with the wrong impression. that is even setting aside the focus of people who are coming at this with a strong predisposition against president obama. they are especially likely to be susceptible. what is a better approach? a cnn story on-line i like very much, reporting on a poll about believe about president obama's place of birth back into the us and then. what i like about it is that the producer who wrote the story put jain images of president obama's birth certificates and a pronouncement in hawaii newspaper at the top.

there is almost no way to look as without being confronted with dramatic visual evidence that president obama was in fact born in the country. it goes on to discuss the controversy and public police about it. it is a much more appropriate frame of coverage and one that is likely to be more effective. next slide. here is another example of what i think journalists should try to avoid. this is the original "huffington post" story. it is about harry reid saying mitt romney has not paid taxes in 10 years. it was unsupported here say from one anonymous source. there is no evidence that is verifiable to support this claim. if you read the story, it is narrating the claim in a very correct way. it is only much later that the journalist gets around to mentioning that the claim is impossible to verify. i have highlighted that here in

green to visually highlight how much of the story is repeating a false claim and how little is pointing up the problems. let me give you a contrast i think is a better approach. here is a story. it is a day two or dates 3 story. it is about the debate and contest and let about -- less about the specific charges. it is worth noting in green how much of the story is emphasizing the truth and calling into question the claim. we cannot say what romney did or did not do on his tax returns. but there is no verifiable evidence on the table to support harry reid's claim. the story was that in the foreground. it was the claim, it minimizes the extent to which it repeats the claim over and over. i think that is a much more effective approach but it is one we do not see as often as with a bike. next slide.

naming an shaming. this is a "los angeles times" head line covering the welfare attack the first panel discussed. it was repeated by rick santorum at the republican convention. this clip got a lot of play. people found it very refreshing that the "los angeles times" was willing to directly call out rick santorum and to say that the claim was inaccurate. it does not say, repeats welfare attack calls -- called inaccurate. there is no punch polling. it is very direct. this is the person making the claim, and it is inaccurate. this is a kind of coverage we do not often see. it is quite powerful. it has the potential to make politicians think twice, to make them have that conversation that was talked about in the first panel. do we want to go over this

? fact texting is not magic -- over this line? fact checking is not magic. what else constructively can journalists do? this is an example i think might be especially helpful to reporters. think about how to report a story. you guys don't write your own head lice. i understand. you do not have control over whether you can get a line like that into your publication. but what you can control is who you talk to for your story. this is an abc news story back in 2009 right after sarah pailin made the original panels' claim. what i like about this story is it is very clear about the consensus that the claim was false.

experts debunked the claim. doctors agree. in particular, it makes a point of saying that even health care at -- experts who disagree with obama's plan believe the claim is false. imagine someone reading this who does not like obama, does not like the health care plan, it is emphasizing there is someone like to share is your perspective on the president's plan and that expert agrees this is false. that is much more persuasive than the back and forth, democrats s this and republicans say that coverage. i will turn it over to bruce perry [applause] -- bruce. [applause] >> thank you. what i am doing is different. they looked specifically at fact checking on tax breaks. i am looking at stand-alone fact checking that is specific to

claims found in political advertisements. i am looking at videos, as well. the videos are what we are king, a flackchec sister site. what we did is we exposed to 900 participants to deceptive claims, the first one is the agenda project against congressman ryan. the second one was for american doctors for truth. let's watch those ads. ["america the beautiful"

playing instrumental]

>> this ad -- >> my doctor has told me this pacemaker will save my life. the careful, mr. president. there is a cliff here. >> maybe this will not help. maybe you are better off not having surgery but taking a painkiller. >> but, mr. president, we are not just talking about my pain. we are talking about my life. no, i need a pace that there. [screams]

>> president obama again throwing seniors over the cliff. >> but his bins were randomly selected into three groups. one group with the flackcheck.org version. let's lock -- let's watch the flack check video. >> it was another one of those days. raining, but not enough rain to watch the film straight off the streets. , report on my desk. another one, i thought out loud. i poured myself a stiffer breakfast. elderly woman, 67, 69, smashed against the rocks. i knew what the autopsy point --

report would say. m.o.cliff, same am this is a serial killer. a homicidal freak. he takes the dames for a leisurely walk through the park. until she is thrown off the cliff screaming. now it is happening again. >> i need a pacemaker [screams] >> a few things did not add up. a group called the agenda project says paul ryan is a killer. according to a source, he ignores the sofact. american doctors for troops as president obama is rationing health care.

>> president obama again throwing seniors off the cliff. >> another trusted source gave me this piece of of the mission. it is a reduction in future growth spending over 10 years, not a slashing of the current budget. that is what i put it together. the agenda product -- project, american data for truth, two anonymous groups, is it obama, is it ryan? not on your life. these dames were killed by deception. deception and a cliff. [laughter] >> this is what the participants saw, taken from the washington post fast tracker -- a fact checker. the final condition, the control commission, as participants who

were exposed to a video, which asked the question, could we can be reelected today if the campaign techniques and communication channels were available back then. let's watch that. >> mr. lincoln, we have a question for you. why should we trust you as president? as a lawyer, you defended women -- you admitted adultery. a wife who poisoned her husband. it raises the question, whose emancipation is he going to claim next. >> next slide. we have to rate the accuracy of five claims. let me read these before you. the first claim is president

obama hurt seniors by cutting medicare -- medicare budget. the second claim was congressm'. upheld flackcheck condition did work. the only difference is the -- that is different are the first two clients. the reason for that is the claim with the written fact check condition, the first time, that is the first debunked in our

condition. the emphasis was different. as you just saw, privatize medicare was emphasized more. there's no difference across these conditions. backside. we also looked at favorability of the candidates. there are no -- no differences across conditions. there are differences across canada. barack obama and joe biden are rated higher -- congressman ryan, sorry. barack obama and joe biden are rated higher than mitt romney and paul ryan. we are not doing population increases. we are looking across conditions. next slide. we also ask them to read -- to write the valuation of the stimuli. how accurate, how formulated -- how informative, how entertaining they are.

the written fact check is little bit higher on accurate, foreign of, the informative, and credible. we know that the effectiveness of the two type of fact checking are comparable. thank you. [applause] >> hello. i am frowant to tell a story abt my mother. she works at her church. in illinois. she still has a flip phone. she does not have facebook. he is not a quitter. her -- her computer is always mysteriously broke in. she reads the "chicago tribune" every morning. she listens to news radio as she

is driving to and from work. she watches the 10:00 news sometimes if she is still awake. that is how she stays informed. that is how she gets her news. she is a typical, an informed voter. the second to last day of the republican national convention, paul ryan gave a speech that a lot of people on line and various fact checkers spotlighted as containing numerous misleading claims or factually inaccurate claims. my mom did not know that. she called me the next morning and she was thrilled about how strong he seemed on television. and just how much she responded to the speech that he gave. i said, there has been quite a bit of a dispute over a lot of the things he said. you might want to go to put a fact daughter worked -- poli

tifact.org. she was shocked. she never had heard of those sites. she had never heard anything in the chicago tribune or the radio driving to work that morning about ryan's speech about how it might -- might not have been as amazing and is inspiring as she initially thought. my mom wants to make good decisions when she is voting. she is not particularly archaeological. she wants to be an uninformed voters. she -- or she wants to be an informed voter. she does not have time or interest in spending oliver de seeking out this data. -- all of her time seeking out this data. it will have to come through the

news sources that she gets, through the newspapers she says skies to, the radio, and what not. aside and put together, i will spotlight examples of good fact checking from newspapers and basic news sources, not dedicated outlets. first slide. this is something that ran in may in the associated press. this is when donald trump was -- talking about the birther rumors that had been around forever. a lot of papers covered this. it was still under dispute. it cut the -- it was covered as if reputable people still disagreed on where the president

was bored. a good job was done here. they put it very high up in the piece that this was a debunked conspiracy theory. they did not spend too much claimsstating trompe's -- trump's claims. they say flat out, such allegations have repeatedly been proven false. the state of hawaii recently reaffirmed obama was born there. this is something any newspaper can do when they are covering something like this, rather than reporting the debate. spending more time reporting the fact of the matter, putting them up high, so people who are skimming or reading with not much time can get a sense that what is being said, the relative accuracy of those statements. next slide. this is something from the washington post in june.

i do not know how, but this -- but there was a rumor about the epa flying unmanned drones over farmland. this was something that was seized on by people who wanted to seize on it for their own purposes. it is a story that percolated. it was completely untrue. 100%. they are not using unmanned drones to spy on midwestern farmland. an interesting thing was done here. the piece was written about how this rumor spread. i think he laid it out here very clearly right up top. ." is never a true i jumped through the article for the purposes of the slide. he did want to break it down

some more. lower down in the peace, where i highlighted, he did what has been urged for reporters to do, naming enchaining the people who mentioned this falsehood and whose spread it and allowed it o grow into something that was worth a washington post article to refute it. this is the sort of thing that is within the capabilities of any moderately staffed news from. is interesting to read. it is something that once you are finished, you -- you are left with very little doubt. good job. next slide. this is from denver post.

a little bit ago after the romney video of him talking about the 47% was leaked. there was a lot of press coverage talking about what this means for his campaign. that is interesting. but i think the denver post did something a little bit different. i think it is worthy of note. on their front page, they gave the tremendous play, not just talking about the 47% think that will sink his campaign in colorado, but actually breaking down what exactly this 47% was comprised of carried images, grass, pie charts, what not, are very helpful for news outlets that want to refute false claims. people like looking at them. quitetake root in people's-

easily. i think the way the post presented this was slightly smarter of a take on a story they were going to cover any way. this is something again that with a little bit of thought and planning, and the newspaper planning to cover the story could have done it. next slide. this is not a good example. i am using this to set up my next slide. a big problem with coverage in a campaign year is when a given news outlet just reports on the claims made in a political ad as if those claims themselves are just news without putting them in some other sort of context. this is from the loss vegas review journal. the reporter here just

essentially parroted what was being said in the ad and ims set how theym play in the state. the las vegas sun took a different claim on the sad. -- take on the ad. they were testing the truth of various ads that run. from -- front and center, "th. they provide the full context of what obama said. at the bottom, in no uncertain to soon returns, this line of attack is laughable. -- no uncertain terms, "this line of attack is laughable."

in terms of televised fact checks, and they do exist, and a lot of places to a decent job with them, this is a screen shot from wcco in minnesota. you can go to their web site and see the video. i do not think we have time to show it. wcco has been running these reality checks for the past 20 years. i believe they are ahead of the curve with this. the guy who runs them has said they are extremely popular with their station, with the viewers. they bought ratings whenever they run these things. this particular add, this particular spot, he was checking an ad run by the challenger in a congressional race taking statements that rick connellan made it quite -- 40 years ago

about some sort of medicare plan or something having to do with some health care plan that did not pass. i think he did a really good job here. you will see it in the video. these statements did come out of the candida's mouth. they came out 40 years ago. they do not have much bearing on the race right now. next slide. a similar thing happened at a station in orlando, florida. greg here, he does similar truth test with ads. this screen shot is not testing and ad. it is testing a statement the governor made in spending in florida. this is something that is

popular with viewers, that stations can do that does not take all that many resources given the money that is coming in to the stations from superpac ads and other political spending. i like this because greg fox broke down the statement that fox was making, explained what was wrong with it, why it was incorrect. the statements that were run or go for 2.3 minutes each in terms of what you might expect to find in local news, they are very smart and thorough. i think they deserve our notice. flackcheck.org has put out a guide for local tv stations that want to do fact checking on best practices.

they mention things about breaking up the ads so you are not just running the whole thing and then discussing them. sort of giving a statement, then having the reporter talked about what is wrong. having clear visual cues about relative levels of truth and falsehood. this is all available on their website. it is extremely interesting. i urge you to check it out. that is all i have. i think we are ready for questions. [applause] >> thank you. raise your hand, say who you are, and ask your question. wait for someone to bring you a microphone. >> robert mcguire. my question is particular for --

anyone who has any input. there is a phenomenon called back fire that i have read a lot about where actually informing someone makes them believe more in their previous wrong assumption than they did before. your research seems to refute that. i am curious if you have heard of this phenomenon and if you have any idea why there may be differences in your research as opposed to other research has shown that people believe their previous wrong assumptions more and maybe if there is a difference. for example, the articles you mentioned, the people did not know the politicians. it is not something that was the core of their being belief. maybe that makes the difference. i am curious if you have input. >> i think that is exactly what it was. people were not already invested in this candid and these facts.

once they do become invested, it becomes harder to dislodge. there can be a back fire a fact. the defect. chemists-- ef -- effect. >> we were using real politicians and people were much more likely to be invested in their beliefs and in some cases in the factual believe that was being called into question. i do think that plays a role. the other thing is because emily was using a fictional scenario, she also had -- the ability to provide a definitive the balkan in a way -- a definitive debunking. we cannot prove what was in mitt romney's tax returns. we cannot prove that the bomb was an's weapons of mass defection are not in syria. we can suggest that the best available evidence says those

things are not true. that is not as persuasive as more definitive sources. >> next hand up. yes. >> hello. thank you very much. i enjoyed it. there is probably a better term, but the authenticators. a lot of times, you can present people with information or fax, but it is who is saying whether it is true or false that is even more important. i will give you an example using my experience. my dad watch as fox news. if fox news says it, it is true. it did not true -- if it did not matter if you go in with other information. the fact that some and he believes entrusts is giving the information, that is more important than almost anything else. i see that reflected sometimes about the comments about the lame stream media.

how do you take into account that the source of the formation or the person who is their finest plays almost as big a role as the actual information you present?

one-hour debate and who in sacramento. -- 01-hour debate in sacramento. by fellow, and welcome to what should be an interesting conversation about issues the

matter to sacramento and the nation. i am the moderator of this debate. >> this is in the third district, redrawn into a more compact seventh district, but what has not changed are the two men who want to represent it. dan lundgren has represented this region since 2005. he represented congress in 1980's and served eight years as attorney general. the democrat has never held political office. he is a physician who served as chief medical officer and is a professor at uc-davis. these two squared off in 2010.

there are five people on the ballots. this year there are only two. this is the most closely watched in the nation. >> we are joined by dan lundgren. thanks for being with us today. i want to introduce my colleagues from the other news organization sponsoring the debate. we are also joined by a small studio audience. i am asking you folks if you will keep your reaction to yourselves. you are welcome to offer a clause in the end, but otherwise, it is all about the guys -- to offer applause at the end, but otherwise it is all about the candidates. each candidate will have a closing statement at the end of the debate. the candidates will have 90

seconds to answer questions. opponents will have 60 seconds for rebuttal. we will try to keep to the time, and i am sure that will work out well. most of my journalists have not seen these questions in advance. some of the questions are coming from the seventh congressional district, which were submitted to each news organizations. each candidate is going to have the chance to ask their opponents a question of his own choosing. the order was determined by a coin toss, and dan lundgren won the coin toss, so we will begin with the opening statement. your opening statement. good >> i want to thank the moderator's for putting this on. thank you for joining us, and congressman, i want to thank you for joining this debate. i believe in america.

i am a product of that american dream. and my parents came here with a little more of that dream. we have lived most of our adult life here, and that is where we have raised our daughter, and this is a great community, and what we have seen is things have been changing a little bit. we have been volunteering are around this community. three weeks ago we were working in one of the free clinics, and we noticed every patient we have seen was someone who had been laid off. these were folks looking for work, and they were struggling to get the necessary care. did congress failed to create enough jobs to get this

community working again. i believe in the american dream, and i am running for congress because we have to make sure every child has access to that dream the same way i did. >> congressman, your opening statements. on 9-11, i happen to be in washington, d.c. i passed over the bridge an hour and a half before it was hit. i lost a friend that day on that plane. i lost a law partner, and one of the gunman who had grown up with my children, and their family went to church with us -- was lost in one of the twin towers. it got hit directly. that changed my life.

that changed american directly, but i've found if i had the opportunity to go into public service -- icloud if i had the opportunity to go into public service i would, to do what is necessary to make sure those who attacked us do not succeed. we could use the tools necessary to protect us and at the same time, not allow them to defeat us for having us give up civil liberties. good i have been doing that every single day. i work on the issue of jobs, taxes, spending. the reason i went back to congress is to continue to work to protect the american people against those who would destroy our way of life, and they are still there. good >> let's begin the questions. a reminder of the rules for each survey. the first question comes from marianne of public radio.

>> comcast announced hundreds of job cuts in our area. you talk about jobs. he said congress failed to create enough jobs. when you solicited questions, the overriding issue was job creation. people want you to be very specific, so can you give us a concrete example of how you create jobs? >> there is no greater issue in our region. we are facing close to a 11% unemployment. we found out comcast is going to lose up to 300 jobs. they are threatening to lose jobs. we lost our fortune 500 company. we have to start bringing business to this region, and we can do that. i talked to small business owners. they are ready to start hiring again. the problem they have is getting

access to loans. we need a tax policy that will work not only in sacramento but in america. we need to close the loophole that allows companies to shift new jobs overseas. let's pass an infrastructure we have levees then need lots of work. of we have thousands of construction workers out of work. if we can tax that, we can start putting people back to work. i am a product of public schools. investment in education long- term is an investment in jobs. our children have to be able to compete in the 21st century, so this is not about building jobs. this is about bringing those companies here and building on the assets. we can do it, but we have to work to do that. >> what about jobs and being specific about jobs? >> congress does not create

jobs. congress can prohibit or promote in the private sector, a predominantly small business, so i have spent a good deal of time talking to people in small business. one thing they find is the rash of lawsuits. i have a law that would change that as opposed to litigation. secondly, if you speak to small business people, they are talking about the uncertainty created by taxes coming forward on january 1. i support and now that we have not allowed those taxes to go up. now president obama said we ought to extend those tax cuts. we need to do it once again. regulatory reform, i have had a number of bills on which i have voted that have gone to the senate. we need senators to our.

>> the second question comes from me, and it is for you. your party's candidate for governor mitt romney has been trying to explain a lot what he meant at a florida fund-raiser when he said there are 47% of americans who believe they are victims and believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, but they are entitled to health care, food, and housing. is that how you see them? >> sure, i think he made a major mistake in saying people want to be victims. he pointed out there are 49% of the people that do not pay income taxes. there are different categories. some do not because they are retired. i would not call them and victimized. others have a low income and do not qualify for paying taxes on the federal level. what i have supported all along is tax reform that will require people working and making real

money to pay taxes. our tax system is just right with all kinds of exceptions. i have supported legislation, voted for legislation on the floor. good the budget specifically talks about tax reform, which would expand the base, expand the tax base, eliminating any loopholes, and requiring businesses and individuals to pay their fair share. the problem is we need more taxpayers, not morning in taxes. that is how you are going to increase the government's ability to function we need to attack the spending that is out of control on the federal level. >> does that mean and you would raise taxes? >> i need more people at higher income levels. we do not need these high tax

rates if we would eliminate many exceptions and allow people not to pay taxes. >> americans do not look of themselves as victims, and 47% are not victims. they are people who have worked their whole lives, paid into medicare. they are folks looking for jobs right now. these are folks out what to get back to work. these are folks looking to care for themselves. i agree with a congressman. the way we address this is we broaden the tax base, but you give people jobs so they are part of the system. that is how we have always functioned as society. when i talk about the american dream it is giving people those opportunities so they can climb one or two rungs on the ladder and leave their kids better off. we have got to on president --

to honor the parents and grandparents. we need to be involved in the social security system. >> on to this debate. republicans in this district and other districts are running tv ads hammering you and other democrats for supporting the president's health care overall, specifically what they say is a dangerous cuts to medicare by lowering payments to providers in the medicare advantage program. do you support that aspect of health care overall, and if so, what you say to seniors who are worried about their health care? >> the congressmen and his supporters have been saying democrats want to cut over $700 billion from medicare to reagan -- from medicare. you know that is not true. you voted for the same thing yourself twice.

the $700 billion never leaves medicare. it stays there. the sacramento bee has looked at this and said that is entirely false. congressman, you know the truth. you voted for this twice. we have to get serious about medicare. as a doctor, i have sat with people as they have to decide between one medication and the other when they needed both and could not afford both. let's get rid of fraud. let's negotiate on a fair playing field. let's make this about patients. let's practice prevention. let's prevent a heart attack. let's diagnose cancer early so we can save a life. that is sorry to cut costs -- that is going to cut costs. let's make it about taking care

of patients. those are cuts in payments to helping insurance companies, and you know better than that because you voted for the same thing twice. >> just because you say something is true does not make it true. look at the chief auditor for the medicare system. they ask whether there are cuts. they said yes. they admitted they are counted twice, once to help the survivability of the trust fund and then to pay for the additional programs under medicare. you cannot double count, even if you are a doctor. it takes it out of medicare. it specifically takes it out of medicare, and we have one of the highest divisions of senior citizens who opted for medicare advantage in the entire country common and under the formula that he supports, the seniors in this district will suffer a

larger cuts than those in florida, a perverse nonsense as a result of the fact of we have lower costs per patient than they have in florida. i am proud i voted for it, and will get the testimony to that state's you are absolutely wrong in what you just said. -- the testimony that stayed you are absolutely wrong in what you just said. >> we have some consistency, but this is an issue. the republican plan targets the same amount of money. that is one of the problems we have. we are talking about the same pot of money. >> we are not. any cut stay in the system as proposed by the president, as admitted under oath in testimony to the congress. they take that money out and use

it for new programs to establish -- established under the president's program, so it actually endangers medicare. it does not leave the money for that purpose. that is the statement under oath. we will make that available. >> are broke a format. the you want to speak briefly and now? >> let's look at what the congressman supports. he supports a budget that would privatize medicare, but would leave seniors without unnecessary care, breaking a promise we made over a generation. it would privatize it and add thousands of dollars in costs to medicare. >> we can talk about this some more. >> this is a pretty important issue. it is not a voucher. it is a support program. it was first presented as a bipartisan proposal under the

clinton administration. it is not a voucher. it is a premium support program, and it is a pattern under the health care program for millions of americans. >> it does not cover the cost of care seniors need. we have to put our patients first. >> something tells me we do not agree, which means we will get a chance to hear from voters. let me get to a couple of questions. this is for you, congressman lundgren, and it comes from rancho cordova global warming, is this an issue that concerns you? why? what steps would you take to minimize the impact to the country? she means water supply, flooding common and raider management, and drought now. >> there is no question there is climate change. the question is is it caused by

human activity. it seems we ought to take reasonable steps but not steps that would take us at a disadvantageous position economically where we will have less jobs. there are people who support the things that would destroy jobs, and we have an example of that in the current administration that i believe is supported by my opponents to try to basically ruined the coal industry in the united states, and losing tens of thousands of jobs instead of pursuing the cleanest technology in the area of:. -- of coal. my record is pretty good. good we got rid of the program that gave us the equivalent of one car a year. it produces enough energy to

light 250 homes a year. in reduces that which goes to landfills by 5,000 tons, and the number of carbo equivalent is almost 900. that is a pretty good record in just one year. good >> you are suggesting the global warming change we are seeing may not because by man- made sources of? >> my suggestion is we do not know to what extent is and what extent it will have on the united states. i believe it makes good common sense to try to reduce carbon emissions were possible. >> you want to talk about climate change? >> talk to a farmer in the midwest right now, but climate is changing. talk to the folks in new orleans. we have seen these extremes. we can go about this in a smart way that creates jobs.

we should never doubt american ingenuity when we put our mind to something. your there is no reason we cannot move forward and become an energy independent country. this is a national security issue as well. we need to start producing our own energy at home and putting folks to work. the question is how does it affect us at home. we defend the region we depend on our agricultural segment at home. our snowcaps are melting. that is our biggest reservoir, so we have got to address this, and we can debate what causes it, but the fact is the longer we wait, the worse it is getting. >> another question. >> this one comes to us from citrus heights. she asks, how would you propose to work across the aisle to ameliorate the disastrous secret station -- sequestration in this

country over the fiscal cliff? >> the first thing we need to do is roll up our sleeves and take these issues seriously. congress them. we have to learn how to satisfy political differences and we have to find common ground pin as democrats and republicans, we have a lot more in common than what separates us. we all want our kids to succeed. right now, the political parties are getting in their way. we have to get back to that context where it is not about political party, but about taking care people and moving forward. here is how we do that cared leadership is not about -- hear is how we do that. leadership is not about blame. it is about rolling up your

sleeves, locking yourself in a room and leading by example. congress has not been able to come up with a budget in over 2000 days. that is ridiculous. that is where this has to start. let's come up with a budget. there is a no budget to-no pay legislation that says, if congress does not do its job and pass irresponsible budget, they don't get paid. that is a step in the right direction paired i will co- sponsor that legislation which is bipartisan and hold congress responsible for doing their core job, which is passing a budget which they have not done in 2008. >> your being critical about the current congress. give us an issue that you would be willing to compromise on. >> i have said that i think there are many things. no child left behind is not the

right direction for education. we can find those issues where i am willing to stand against my party. so let's work together. >> can you work with democrats on the sequestration if you return to washington? >> i have worked with democrats my entire life. all you have to do is look at my record, whether it is immigration, criminal justice or things like gun laws. i have worked across the aisle. as a matter of fact, if you check with members on the other side of the aisle, they come to me to see if they can get some support. ron wyden came to me before he went to vice-presidential nominee paul ryan in terms of his approach. unfortunately, i was totally involved on some issues dealing with anti-terrorism so i could not to deal with the specific one. but i probably have as many piece of red -- of legislation that is bipartisan and any member of congress.

the idea of no budget/no pay, how about the idea of new budget/no job. i put my budget on print and have not seen any budget that you put on line. dianne feinstein has not voted for a budget in the last 2000 days. >> did you vote for the budgets during the democrat rain in the house? >> i voted for the alternatives. >> this one is for dan lundgren. >> let's go back to health care. the affordable care act, which to support the repeal? california and other states are already moving forward with a lot of the provisions, including the health benefit exchange, the online insurance marketplace. how should the government handle states like california who are moving in this direction, getting people lined up for medicaid expansion with the expectation that the money will be there?

>> we have to be very honest with people we cannot afford obamacare. it will bury us in debt. when you have extensions in the thousands, it might suggest to you that maybe this does not make sense. when you have testimony before the relevant committees in congress, providers will actually reach a cliff so you will have made the munition, a lessening of the number of doctors, the number of hospitals, the number of medical systems that can treat people. i have suggested that we not only repeal obamacare, but replace it with other things. i co-sponsored hr 6283 with dr. burgess of texas. that would create incentives for states to create a high risk

pool to make sure that no one is denied access to quality care. i have worked on a number of other different approaches, allowing people to purchase insurance across state lines, that will increase tremendously the number of opportunities and varieties of coverage that is out there. if you look at what is contained in our budget with respect to actual reform of the system, you will see that people can stay in what they have now or have greater choices down the line with an element of competition that will help drive costs down. >> what i think the best thing for the audiences to tell us is what is wrong from the republican plan from your eyes. >> i have been consistent. the affordable care at is not the direction i would have gone. as a physician, as someone who has dealt with in these issues my whole adult life and professional life, we have to do with the cost of care could but

the only way you do that is by taking on the health insurance industry and the pharmaceutical industry and making sure that it is about patients. their plan does not do that. it continues to allow health insurance companies to make those decisions. we need to take health care and put it in the hands of our patients. he touched on any number of issues. there is no way for us to get our economy going until we have addressed the cost of health care. when i talk to small businesses and large corporations, after peril, their biggest item is the cost of benefits -- after payroll, their biggest item is the cost of benefits. that has to be priority number one camp that is why i disagreed with the president's approach. he should have made economic case for why we need to get a handle of health care costs. >> you have talked about wasteful spending in washington. you have issued statements about

that night could be mentioned loopholes. those are difficult things to define for some people. give me one example of wasteful spending and a loophole. >> wasteful spending is the 30 cents on every health care dollar that goes to the health insurance industry that has nothing to do with patient care. that is wasteful spending. wasteful spending is the fact that the federal government is prohibited from negotiating on pharmaceutical pricing. the bush drug benefit forces to negotiate for the best price. that is and $80 billion giveaway. >> what is a loophole? >> a loophole allows companies to ship jobs overseas. it is not fair trade. it is moving jobs overseas and leaving dollars over there as opposed to closing a loophole that allows us to accept those

companies in america. >> congressman lundgren, which is a loophole to you, sir? >> i will say that waste is sold under -- is solyndra. we ought to use our common sense when we look at these programs instead of throwing money to the wind. a loophole, corn ethanol. it has been the largest boondoggle since i have been in congress. we finally got rid of the subsidy, but there is still a tariff on ethanol made from other substances coming into the united states. that is not only an improper loophole, but it also happens to be immoral because it has as a direct impact on a particular food stuff that is utilized as a stable in diets around the world. i cannot see why -- there's no

common sense to it. it does not make sense from the standpoint of taxpayers. and it is immoral to respect with the food needs of people around the world. >> congressman, iran says they're not developing a nuclear bomb in but reports as recently as last month show that they are stepping up their nuclear enrichment activities. just today, president obama told the u.n. that the iran situation is not a challenge and it can be contained. tell me, at what point is military involvement necessary? what is airline in the sand. -- what is our line in the sand. >> the fact is, it is happening. our intelligence, israeli in myigence do not differenc judgment on the surface. the question is how do you

analyze that and i think we analyze it in several ways. but the next question is where do you draw the line. i think israel is trying to tell us that we need to draw the line now and i accept drawing the line now present it is unacceptable for iran having a nuclear weapon. but you have to look at what the administration has done. this president points to the failings of israel before pointing to the countries around it that are threatening them. the last thing you should do is show weakness, a divide between your country and its strongest ally. that is what this country has done we are on the brink of a decision that needs to be made. it is unacceptable. when we say it is unacceptable, we ought to have all options to stop iranian development of a nuclear weapon. some might say that will get us into a conflict. we will be in a conflict one way

or the other. and if they have a nuclear weapon, the consequences will be devastating, not only for israel, but the entire middle east and the entire country. >> the congressman has said that the president has been weak on iran. >> the president has introduced diplomacy, but without the threat of military intervention is not real diplomacy. iran has to know that we will never let them acquire nuclear weapons. i'm understand the congressman. i agree with him. that would destabilize the region. that would put israel, one of our closest allies, in harm's way and we have to stand with israel. the greatest threat to destabilization in the middle east is a nuclear-arms iran. we cannot let that happen appeared but we have to let air diplomacy work. it has to be diplomacy with a meaningful and understanding to ahmadinejad that we will invade if we have 2. >> we are now the point in this debate where each candidate will

ask the other candidate a question. these are consistent with the rules we agreed to in the order we're going. >> congressman, recently, you sent out a taxpayer-funded miller saying that you will lead by example. which one of your taxpayer- funded pensions will you use to help us pay off the debt? >> i would have expected a question like that from you. i do not qualify for a pension -- i will try very hard -- secondly, i would just say this. i have worked as hard as any member of congress and trying to control spending.

i chair the committee that oversees expenditures of the congress -- of the house of representatives for two years. for two years, i have brought to the floor cuts to the congress, cuts to my budget, cuts to the leadership budget and that is not the easiest thing to do. and cuts to every single committee. i have cut my own committee more than i have cut the other committees. if the whole federal committee -- the whole federal government had cut its budget by 11%, we would be well on our way toward establishing a guide path toward a balanced budget. look at my actions. my actions speak louder than the words. >> leadership is leading by example. your currently taking a full pension from the state of california of more than $50,000 a year at a time in your taking full salary in congress from

over one of its any $5,000. we are going broke -- over $175,000. we are going broke in this state. we have to lead by example and putting ourselves out there. that is why we made the play-we have made. i will not take a pay raise until unemployment is addressed in this region. that is leading by example. i will not take a pension until we have actually secured medicare and social security next-generation. how can we advocate cuts to seniors when we are not willing to tighten our belts as well as leaders. you proposed privatizing social security and giving it away to wall street. that is not the way we need to go. we need to make decisions ourselves and make these decisions. >> doctor, you have just articulated in number of things that the sacramento bee has

said are false. evidently, you think it is appropriate to continue with falsehoods. four years ago, a mutual friend of ours was called by you to go to a luncheon so you could announce to him that you would run and you asked him to give me a message, that he respected my service to the public and that you would run a different campaign. you would not have any personal attacks. you would only talk about the issues. subsequent to that, i have received from your personal attacks, questioning my integrity, questioning my honesty, questioning the sincerity, questioning my motivation. my question for you is this. when you said that to him, were you telling the truth at that time or was it a cynical political ploy? or, as some of your friends have told me, it is that you could not hold up under the pressure you received from the washington establishment to run a campaign against someone personally instead of the issues?

>> this is about personal integrity. this is about stepping up and leading by example. this is about putting your community first. that is the promise i made as a doctor. and that is the promise i made as a congressman. when we talk about leading by example, it is leading by example. it is by making the sacrifice so your community is better off. it is about working a free clinic and volunteering. when you take a full state of california pension and when you raise your salary by 25% in the last month as attorney general sir you get an extra $11,000, that sets the wrong example. we have to address these. our state is going bankrupt. when you double dip and take a full salary as a congressman and a pension from the state of california, that is exactly the wrong direction. we have to address these issues. those are not personal attacks. those are the facts.

it is a fact that you have said you would privatize social security. we can fact check that i am glad you admitted that you voted for the $716 million that you are attacking me on. those are facts. >> i want to remind everyone that we will have closing statements in a few minutes in this debate for the candidates. we still have more questions. the socialllow-up on security issue. congressman, the trust fund will not have enough money to pay out full benefits in a decade under the current model. changes have been suggested including increasing the retirement age and supporting the payroll tax. what would you do? >> let me just say that we saw an example of how well the

doctor would work across the aisle with people. questioning their motivation, misstating the facts, continually misstating the facts that have been shown to be untrue by analysis by "the sacramento bee" does not bode well for someone who wants to work. i was around last time we had to face this. at that time, i worked with those in the congress. we had the grand compromise with ronald reagan and tip o'neill. it did increase incrementally the age of retirement. and the major factor in attempting to try to keep the social security system reliable, that has actually worked for the last quarter of a century. but will we have the courage now to reach across the island talk about those things. it makes it very difficult to have your opponent and his supporters criticize you because you voted to raise the social

security age back in 1983. i thought that is what they talked about, the great times of tip o'neill and ronald reagan working together across the aisle. i worked across the aisle. we stabilize the situation appeared and now he criticizes it. how does that it is anywhere closer to solving the problem? one of things -- one of the things that we have to do is make sure that people who are 55 and over are not affected. >> what about his accusation that you want to privatize social security? >> that is untrue. i suggested a portion of what you're particular account to be invested you see fit. here is a reason why appeared everybody -- here is the reason why. everybody talked about how we needed a lock box. this is the only way you protect it. you give someone an actual amount of money that they can

invest as they wish. >> i need to step in so we can keep moving. >> can you imagine what would have happened if folks had moved their money out of social security and into wall street in this recession? we would have had millions of seniors in poverty. social security is a sacred program. we have to address it in the broader context of the debt. we have to understand where the dead came from. it came from two wars that were not funded. it came from tax cuts to millionaires and billionaires. it came from billionaires giveaways to wall street, to insurance companies. you voted for those. you voted for a budget twice that will add over $3 trillion to our debt. that is ridiculous. trusting congressman lundgren to address these issues is like trusting in berlin to house sit for you when you go on vacation.

>> i want to talk about immigration for a moment. as you know, president barack obama acted by executive order back in june to allow 1.7 million undocumented immigrants who came to the u.s. as children to stay if they meet certain conditions. did the president to the right thing? >> i would have supported the dream act. these are kids who came here and gives them a chance to become citizens and serve the country they love and to go to college. this is an issue of security. we first have to secure our borders. next, we have to actually take the laws we have and enforce those laws. thirdly, we have to address immigration. we want the best and brightest to come to this country occurred we wanted to get their education. and we want them to build their companies here. that is what moves our economy

forward. >> should we keep all those people here in the united states or send some of them back? >> we should have those who have successfully graduated from college apply for an extension of their leases and over time get a chance to become citizens so they can build their companies here. that is our history. that is our legacy as americans. >> did the president made the right decision? >> -- if he did not, what wouldu have liked to see different? >> you have to be committed to it. we spent 30 days in the congress that were unsuccessful. i came back the next time and we succeeded in doing it. if this president had wanted to have major immigration reform, he should have done it. there were those of us who were willing to work on it and he did

not extend his hand. you have the dream at sitting out there, this thing that he did. six months before the election, i mean, come on, that is pretty cynical. i support things like last week where we voted to get rid of the diversity of exception, a 55,000 visa program that was originally established by tip o'neill to help the irish get into it has nothing to do with skills that people have. it is a violation of the world wide quota system. congressman.e fair, grossma would you send people back next >> those who set foot across the border yesterday, what right do they have to be in the united states? we need a program that -- you do not have to put them on a road

to citizenship. if you cut in line, there's something wrong, and i have a program i have proposed that has those who have roots in the community that would get a blue card. there would be able to stay in the united states but they would not be on the path to citizenship. there would have to go home and sign-off there, get behind the line like everybody else. >> you issued a statement denouncing comments about "legitimate rape." but you did co-sponsor a bill that said only "forcible rape pregnancies should be eligible for federal the funded abortions." do you think there are different kinds of rape? does that influence how you vote on whether federal funds can be used for abortion? >> the fact is, the word "forcible" was taken out of it. i went to the major co-

sponsors and told them that i would not support that unless they took the word "forcible" out because the language they had without it was the language that it prevailed for 30 years in the congress known as the hyde amendment. it has support in both democratic and republican administrations and has bipartisan support in the house and the senate. it was the law. i told them, you should not change the language with one word because it would change the state of law. if you're talking about the mistake they made, i was the one who pointed it out. i can tell you it was after went to them that i told them i could not supported that they changed it. rather than changing the law, i worked to make sure we maintain the law that has stood the test of time. >> rate is rape.

we don't need to debate what it is. what we do need to do is make sure we protect individual liberties, that we protect a woman's right to choose. as a doctor, the oath i took this to sit with patients and empower them within their faith and with their family circumstances and make their decisions as best as they can carry as a doctor, i do not want the government coming into the exam room and making those decisions for me. i want to empower my patients to make the decisions that make sense within their faith and their families. we don't want the federal government in the examining room. >> despite some positive news, the struggling housing market continues to be a drag on the sacramento economy. what role should the federal

government play in trying to change that? do you support homebuyer tax credits and other incentives or what? >> another area i would criticize the president is not addressing the housing crisis early enough because it is a drag on our economy and we will not start to recover. as i am now they're talking to voters and talking to folks who live in this district, many of them are trying to do the right thing. they are paying their mortgage. but their homes are now under water. they are not asking for forgiveness. they want to sit with the banks and now that interest rates have dropped they would like to refinance their homes. the banks are not doing it. i think it is appropriate for the federal government to work with banks to start getting them to help homeowners and allowing them to start refinancing their homes. these are folks who do not want to get out of what they are doing grave they want to do the right thing but they need help right now. >> #1, for some people who have

been forced upon or had shorts hills, -- short sales, i had a major piece of legislation to make sure that would not happen. i have been told by realtors in our area and first-time home buyers say that they have not had the opportunity to purchase homes because investment companies have come in and bought them out from under them. third, i would just say that there are any number of people in our constituents who have been helped with the banks and to see whether they can be refinanced. so i do think there is a place for government to play in that. >> what could you do about investors coming in? any ideas?

>> i don't know, except maybe exposing the fact that this is undercutting -- i have had realtors say they have a boat to qualify and they have had to make applications on as many as 19 homes and then have investors come in and take them from under them. i don't know if there's anything legally we can do about that. but it is in the best interest of the people in our area. >> for those first-time homebuyers, folks who want to get in homes, especially veterans, we should be able to work with those individuals to get them access to the loans so they can buy the homes that they need. >> congressman lundgren, actually, both of you -- can you identify for us the most dangerous interests in washington? tell me in your view which group just has too much influence on

the goings on at the capitol? >> i don't think you can talk about any particular group. what do you want to do, say that someone cannot petition their grievances to the government? the gallup poll comes out and shows the president behind in it immediately they are attacked by the executive branch? i don't put people in those categories could i think it is unfair to bring the federal government down on somebody who is trying to present their case. it doesn't matter if they are the wealthiest or the poorest. what does matter is the transparency in terms of lobbying, making sure that everyone knows when it is done, how what does that, under what circumstances it is done and then let the people decide. the first amendment is based on the proposition that the more that is said by more people, all stations of life, the better it

is. you need to meet a misguided notion with a better notion. this idea that the fedele government needs to tell us that we think you should not be talking so much, or you are the favored operations and you're a disfavored operation -- i don't want the government involved in that sort of thing. so i won't even answer your question because it would suggest that i, as a member of congress, will punish someone. >> so there's nothing wrong in washington. >> that is not what i said at all. but you want me to point out who are the good guys and who are the bad guys. the fact of the matter is that the rough and tumble in a garment allows people to say what they have to say and then let the people decide -- in government allows people say what they have to say and then let the people the side. >> the citizens united ruling, the unleashing of millions of

dollars that will corrupting our democracy, the unleashing of corp. -- i am glad to hear the congressman say he wants transparency. we should know who is donating to these campaigns and funneling dollars in two races. that will undermine our democracy. that truly is in my mind something that we have to address. we can do it. there is the disclose that that does suggest that we move forward so we at least know who is donating to these ads. i think that is a step in the right direction current congressman, that is in your committee. >> before closing statements, as you may know, california has a plan for a high-speed rail system from san francisco to l.a. and maybe one day to sacramento. it requires congressional money. would you find that program?

>> no, i would not fund the program right now. i would invest money in infrastructure. for our region, that would be levees, keeping your families said, but now is not the time for that investment to take place. >> when we had what was supposed to be a debate on state public radio two years ago, you were for it and you criticized me for not being for the very program that you are now against. so i guess you were for it before you were against it and maybe you will be for it again. >> that would make a nice tv ad. >> you had your turn. >> very briefly. we are coming closer. >> there were favored groups and disfavored groups. that is where the government does and does what i believe it is against the spirit and the letter of the first amendment.

>> i know you want to say it, but you better sit quick. but the voters were for high- speed rail. this is not the time for it. >> now they have the opportunity to issue closing statements. by the order of the coin toss, doctor, you have the first closing statement. >> i want to thank the moderator's and those joining us on television. four years ago, we faced an unprecedented economic situation that took us into the great recession. now we face political dysfunction that threatens to take us back there. you have heard two different visions. he is part of what got us into this mess. he put forth the same policies that got us into this mess kennedy-esque taken hundreds of thousands of dollars in wall street and big oil companies -- who do you think he will work for?

he has voted on a budget twice that would add over $3 trillion in debt that will crush our kids. i am a doctor. the oath i took was to make my patients first. we have to make sure that every child has the american dream that i am a product of. here is my promise to you. i pledge not to take any salary until unemployment in sacramento is below 5%. i promise not to take a pension until we have secured social security and medicare for the next generation and our seniors. and i will co-sponsor the legislation no budget/no pay. that is my pledge to you. by putting people first, we can restore the american dream. i would be honored to have your support and vote on november 6. thank you.

>> now we go to the closing statement of the incumbent congressman lundgren. >> we face serious problems in this country. that is why i am in congress, to face those challenges. i have voted for budgets. i have put my name on the line with respect to what needs to be done to put this country back on a fiscal path. my opponent's party and those who support my opponent disagree. they want us to continue on a path of more spending and more taxation. if you listen to what my opponent says, he is for the status quo on steroids. i am opposing that. i am working against that could not just against it, i have a vision of the future for america. it comes out of the promise of america, the idea that you can be the best that you possibly can be with god's talents, not encumbered by a government that tells you they know better. not a government answers all

situation, where jobs are created by the federal government, where every answer is given to you, where every obligation is imposed on you. but rather in a country that is in the spirit of america, the spirit of the foundation of america, that understanding that a robust government does not interfere with the people. i have faith in the people. i have always had faith in the people. and i think i have an obligation and you have an obligation to give to our children and our grandchildren the same greatness in america that our parents gave us. >> i want to thank both candidates for this. we talked about a lot of issues. there are a lot of issues for the voters as they go to the polls. i want to thank you. you can continue to follow information online at new10.net.

the most important thing for you in the seventh congressional district is to get out and vote. election day is november 6. your vote does matter. thank you for watching. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] >> tonight, a debate between the u.s. senate candidates from the bottom. incumbent dean heller was appointed last year. he faces congresswoman shelley berkley. live coverage at 11:00 p.m. eastern on c-span, c-span radio and c-span.org. friday night, another senate debate. this one from wisconsin between tommy thompson and congresswoman

tammy baldwin. watch live at nine eastern. >> to foster work and enterprise in the middle east and other developing countries, i will initiate something i will call prosperity pacts. working with the private sector, the program will identify the barriers to investment and trade in entrepreneurship in developing nations. in exchange for moving as barriers and opening their markets to u.s. investment and trade, developing nations will receive u.s. assistant packages focusing on developing liberty, the rule of law of property rights. >> believe freedom and self- determination are not unique to one culture. these are not simply american values or western values. they are universal values. even as there will be huge challenges to a transition to democracy, i am convinced

government of the people, by the people, and for the people is more likely to bring about the stability, prosperity and individual opportunity that serves as a basis for peace. >> next wednesday, mitt romney and president obama meet in their first presidential debate. from the university of denver. watch and engage with c-span, including our live debate preview at 7 eastern. the debate at 9 and after the debate, a . action. follow our live coverage on c- span, c-span radio and online at c-span.org. >> in his final address to the un general assembly, ahmadinejad call for a new world order not dominated by the west. iran is currently under sanctions from the u.n. and many western countries. for not complying with demands to stop its nuclear enrichment program. this is 85 minutes.

>> on behalf of the general assembly, i have the honor to welcome to the united nations his excellency ahmadinejad, president of iran. [applause] >> in the name of god, the merciful, all praise belongs to allah, the lord of the world and make peace and blessings be among the greatest profits and his progeny. hasten the emergence of your children. grant him good health and victory, make us his best companions and all those who attest to his rightful ness. mr. president, ladies and

gentlemen, i thank god for having the chance to participate in this meeting carried the have gathered here to work together and build a better life for the entire human community and our nations. iran, the lead the glory and beauty, the land of knowledge, culture, wisdom, and morality. the great deal -- the cradle of -- the land of sophists -- the land of scientists, writers, masters. i represent a great and proud nation that is a founder of

human civilization. and an inheritor of respected universal values. i represent a conscious nation dedicated to the cause of peace and compassion. a nation that has experienced the agony and bitter times of the aggression. and imposed wars. am profoundly values that -- i am here now for the 8th time. to my people, in this assembly of sisters and brothers from across the world to show to the well that my noble mission has a global vision and welcomes any effort intended to provide and promote peace, stability, and

equality which can only be realized through harmony, corp. enjoyed management of the world. and poet to present to humanity in his eternal poetry. members are not remain. i have taught in the seven years about the current challenges, solutions and prospects of though future world.

and today, i want to raise and discuss such issues from different perspectives. thousands of years has past since children of adam. peace be upon him. it started to settle down in various parts of earth. peoples of different colors, languages, customs and tradition pursue percently to fulfill that aspiration to build -- for a more beautiful life blessed with lasting peace, security, and happiness. despite all efforts made by people and justice seekers and the sufferings and pains in the quest to achieve happiness and victory, the history of mankind except in rare cases, is marked with unfulfilled dreams and failures. imagine for a moment have there been no reason, just malicious

behaviors and dictatorships with no one violating the rights of others. had values been viewed as the criterion for social dignity in place of affluence and consumerism? had humility not experienced the dark ages of centers of power, not hindered the solution of knowledge and constructive thoughts? had the wars of crew said and periods of slavery and had the inheriters follow the course on the basis of humanitarian principles? had the first and second world were wars in europe, vietnam, africa, latin america not happened and if instead of the occupation of palestine and in position of a safe government, this place -- dismate and genocide of millions of people around the globe, the reason of these wars have been revealed based on justice.

had saddam hussein not invaded iran and had the people supported the rights of iranian people instead of siding with saddam. it's the tragic incidents of september 11 and the military actions of afghanistan and iran that's left millions killed and homeless has not happened and if instead of killing and throwing the corporate into the sea without informing the world and the people of america, an a team had been formed to make the general public aware of the cause because the incident and prepare to bring into justice the prerp traitors have at rich not will be used to secure political goals had the arms been turned into pens and military expenditures been used to promote buildings and animosity among nations.

had the conflicts not been beaten and if differences have not been used for the purposes of advancing political agendas, had the right to criticize the policies and actions of the -- to allow the world media to freely report and shed light on realities instead of taking gestures bent on offending the sanctities and beliefs of human beings and divine messengers who as the purest and most compassionate human beings are the gift of the almighty to humanity.

had the security council not been under the domination of the limited number of government does disabling the united nations to carry out its responsibilities on a just and equitable basis, if the international economic institution had not been under pressure and allow to perform the duties and functions by using their expertise based on fairness and justice, had the world capital not reach in or victimize the economies of nations in order to make up for their own mistakes. if integrity and honesty has not prevailed on the international relations and all nations and governments were treated equally and justly in the global efforts to build and extend happiness for the entire mankind and if other unfavorable situations had not occurred in human life.

imagine how beautiful and pleasant our lives and how lovely the history of mankind would have been. let us take a look at the world situation today. a, the economic situation. poverty is on the rise. and the gap is widening between the rich and the poor. it has exceeded $63 million while the repayment of after half of this amount is efficient to eradicate poverty in the world. the economy is dependant on consumerism and exploitation of people only serve the interest of the limited number of countries. creation of assets by using influence and control over the world's economic centers constitute the greatest abuse of history and is considered a major contributer to global

economic crisis. it has been reported that all the 33 were presented by one government alone. development planning based on capitalist economy that run on a vicious circle triggers on healthy competition and it is a failed practice. b, the -- from the standpoint of the politician who is control the world power centers, such as honesty, integrity, compassion and self-sacrifice are rejected as the outdated notion and impediment to the accomplishment of their goals. they openly talk about their

disbelief in the relevance of ethics to the political and social affairs. to an indigent jouse culture of centuries old effort offense nation the common denominator reflected humans were found feeling unlovered -- unloved and social die no, ma'amism are under constant acts and susceptible to distinction. it is devoid of social identity is being imposed on nation by a systematic disruption and humiliation of identity. it has been seriously weakened and it is destructive and it was under decline. one in sublime low and personality as the heavenly being and man fess nation of divine beauty and the main period of every society has been damaged and abused by the powerful and the wealthy.

human souls has become frustrated and the essence of human kind humiliated and suppressed. c, political and security situation. unilateralism. and wars. instability in occupation to ensure economic interests, and expand dominance over the centers of the world have been the order of the day. intimidation on nuclear weapons and weapons of mass destruction by the parlors have become prevalent. testing generations of ultra modern weaponry and the pledge to disclose these armaments on due time is now being used as a neo-language of threats against nations to request them into accepting into the era of the germany. continued threat by the uncivilized zionists to resort on

military action against our great nation is a clear example of this bitter reality. a state of mistrust has shadowed on the international relations while there is no trust or just authority to help resolve world conflicts. no one feels secure or safe even those who have a stockpiled thousands of atomic bombs or other arms in their arsenals the environmental situation. the environment are the heritage of the entire human kind has been fused with damage and devastated as a result of irresponsible and excessive use of resources particularly by capitalists across the world. a situation that has caused flood, and pollution, inflicting damage and seriously -- depp jeopardizing human life on earth.

the aspirations of adam's children have not been fulfilled. does anybody believe that continuation of the current order is capable of doing for human society? today, everyone is discontent and disappointed with the current international orders. dear colleagues, human beings do not deserve to be under continued sufferings of the situation. god has not ordained such a destiny for mankind. he has ordered humans to make the best and most beautiful life on earth along with justice, love, and dignity. we must therefore think of a solution. who is responsible for all these suffering and failures? -- sufferings and failures? some people try to justify that everything is normal and a

reflection of divine wealth. who is going to blame the responsibility they are of the opinion if they are a nation that has surrenders to dictatorship and greed. it is the nation that accepts germany are arrogant and expansion is power. -- accepts the hygemony of arrogance and expansion is power. it is the nation that are influenced by the powers and most all races in our laws are the result of the passive attitudes with the inclination to live under the supremacy of the world parlors. -- powers. these are the arguments raised by those who tend to blame nations for the unfavorable conditions prevailing in the world with the intention to justify the attitudes and destructive behaviors of the ruling minority. these claims supposedly authentic cannot in any way justify continuation of the present

oppressive international orders. indeed, it is imposed our nations and ambition and goals are pursued either through deceit or resort to force. to justify their inhuman actions, they propagate, the theory based on the survival of the fittest. while in principle, most governments and nations of justice are humble and submissive in the face of right and are fostering dignity, prosperity, and construction. they do not seek to obtain legendary wealth. they have no disputes among themselves in principle, and have never played in a role in the creation of any disastrous events in the course of history.

i do not believe that muslims, christians, jews, hindus, buddhists and others have any problems among themselves or are hostile against each other. they get along together constantly and live together in an atmosphere of peace and they are all devoted to the cause of justice, purity and love. the general tendency of nations has always been to accomplish part of the aspirations reflecting exalted divine and human beauties and mobilities. the current situation of the world and the bitter incidents of history are humanly to the wrong management of the world and the self-proclaim centers of power who have entrusted themselves to the devil.

the order that is rooted in the anti-human torch of slavery and the new system are responsibly for poverty, corruption, ignorance and discrimination in every corner of the world. the current world order has certain characteristics, some of which are as follows. it is founded on materialism and that is why it is in no way bound to moral values. it has been shaped according to selfishness, deception, hatred animosity. it believes in classification of human beings, humiliation of other nations trampling upon the rights of thorse other and domination.

it seeks to expand domination by conflicts amongst ethnic groups and nations. it aims to monopolize powers, wealth, science, and technology for a limited group. policies of the world's main centers of power are based on the principle domination and the conquering of others. these centers only seeks supremacy and are not in favor of peace and definitely not at the service of their nations. are we to believe that those who have spent hundreds of millions of dollars on election campaigns have the interest of the people of the world at their hearts? despite what political parties claim the capitalist countries the money that goes into election campaigns is usually nothing but an investment.

in such countries, people have to move for parties that only represent a small number of people. the view of the matters have the least impact and influence on the big decisions, especially those made of the domestic and foreign policies. in the united states and in europe, their voices are heard. they constitute 99% of the society. the human add ethical value are sacrificed in order to win growth and the willingness to listen to the demands of the people has become only to the time of election. the current world order is discriminatory and based on injustice. distinguished friends and colleagues, what should be done and what is the way of the current situation?

there is no doubt that the world is in need of a new order and a fresh way of thinking. and although which man is recognized as god's supreme creation, enjoying material and spiritual equalities and possessing divine nature filled with in the -- in order tor survive, human dignity and believe in the universal happiness and perfection. three, an order which is after peace, security, and welfare for all walks of life around the globe. four, all that is founded upon trust and kindness, closer to each other, they must love people.

five, a just and fair order in which everybody is equal before law and in which there is no other standard. leaders of the world must regard themselves as committed servants of the people, not their superiors. seven, authority is a sacred gift from people to their rulers. another chance to immerse -- not a chance to ims for the power and wealth. -- immerse power and wealth. mr. president, ladies and gentlemen, is it possible to have order without having everybody's contribution to the way the world is run? it is evident that when all the

people and government start to think and commit themselves to the above mentioned principle and become sensitive to the international important issues and participate in addition makings, their wishes will find the chance to be materialized. by raising collective awareness, the think of global management becomes more lived with the chances of its implementation increase. today is the day of nation and they will determine the future of the world. therefore, together, we need to place our trust in god almighty and stand against the minority with all our might so that they become isolated and can no longer decide the destiny of other nations. two, believe in the god's bounty of blessings and mercy, and seek in the integration and unity of human societies.

government emerging from the three will of nations must believe in their own capabilities and know that they can achieve victory if they vigorously fight the unjust order and defend human rights. three. pave the ground for the joined global management by insisting upon justice and strength and unity, friendship, and economic social, cultural and political interaction in specialized organization. four, reform in the unite nagses with joint efforts. it is necessary to know that the united nation belongs to all nation. does the existence of discrimination among the

members is a great insult to all. the existence of discrimination and monopoly in the united nations is in no way acceptable. 5, have more coordinated effort to generate and propagate and establish the language needed for designing the required structure of the joint global management, filled with love, freedom, and am a tape. participation in global management is the basis of peace. the second-largest trans regional group after the united nations held its 16th summit in tehran with a motto of joint global cognizance of the importance of this issue and the shortcomings of the current mismanagement in the emergence

of crises and problems afflicting the world today. during the summit, participating states and the representative of more than 120 countries, underscores the necessity of a more serious and effective participation of all nations in the global management. we are now at a historic juncture. on the one hand, marxism is no longer around and is eliminated from the management system. on the other, capitalism is bogged down in a self-made quagmire and has reached a deadlock and does not seem to be able to come up with any solution to the various economic political security and cultural

problems of the world. proud to once again emphasize the rightness of its historic decision to -- and the unbridled hegemony ruling the world. on behalf of the members of the underlying movement, are like to invite all countries to play a more active role in making it possible for everybody to contribute to the global decision making processes in the world. the need to remove the structural barriers and encourage the process of universal participation in global management has never been greater before. united nations lax the efficiency to bring about -- lacks the efficiency to bring

about the required changes. nations will lose hope in the global structure to defend their rights if united nations is restructured, the spirit of global collective cooperation will be punished. and the united nations will be damaged. it has a in practice been engulfed. consequently, the un's inefficiency has been on the rise. and monopolization of power of the of the security council has made it nearly impossible to defend the rights of the nation. the issue of the un restructuring is very vital. a goal that had not yet been

accomplished. i'd like to urge the members of the united nations and his excellency, the secretary general, and his colleague, to place this issue high on their addendas -- agenda and the rise and a mechanism to make it happen. -- and devise a mechanism to make it happen. mr. president, france, dear colleagues, -- friends, and their colleagues, creating peace for all, a great historic mission can accomplish. the almighty god has not left alone. it will surely happen. if it does not happen, and will be contradictory to his wisdom. god has promised us a man who loves people and loves absolute

justice. a man who is a perfect human being and his name -- a man who will, in the company of jesus christ and the righteous. are used to the inherent potential of all, the were the men and women of all nations. -- the worthy men and women of all nations. he will lead humanity to achieve its glorious and eternal ideals. the of libel of the ultimate savior will mark -- the arrival of the old met satyr will mark a resurrection. the beginning of peace, lasting security and genuine life. his arrival will be the end of oppression, and morality, discrimination, and the beginning of justice, love, and empathy. he will come and cut through

ignorance, superstition, prejudice, but opening the gates of science and knowledge. he will establish a world and repair the grounds for the collective, active, and constructive participation of all. in the global management. he will come to grant kindness, hope, freedom, and dignity to all humanity. as a gift. he will come for mankind will take the pleasure of being human and being in the company of other humans. he will come so that fans will be joined, hearts will be filled with love. pyrrophyte to be at the service of security -- purified to be at the service of security.

he will come to return all children of atom. -- adam, in respect of their color, after a history of long separation and vision. lincoln them to eternal happiness - linking them to return to happen is enjoy. the revival of the savior, jesus christ and the righteous will bring about an internally bright future for mankind. not by the voids or rating wars but through a quickening -- not by waging wars. he will blress humanity with a string that puts an end to our winter of ignorance. with the tidings of a season of

blooming, he puts an end to the winter of ignorance. now we can see and we can sense the street sense and the soulful breeze of the spring, a spring that has just begun and that not belong to a specific race, ethnicity, nation, or region. a spring that will soon reach all the territories in asia, europe, africa, and america. he will be the strength of all. for justice seekers and freedom lovers. let us join hands and clear the way for his eventual arrival. with empathy and cooperation. in harmony and unity. let us march to salvation for

the thirsty soul of humanity to taste. long live this spring. long live this spring. and again and again, long live this spring. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] but british prime minister david cameron discussed democracy in the arab world and condemned the assad government in syria for violence directed at its own citizens. >> his excellency, the right honorable david cameron. >> thank you, mr. president yuri -- mr. president. i am proud that this year britain welcomed the world to the olympic games and put on a great display. showing that while we may only have the 22nd largest population

in the world, we can roll out one of the warmest welcome to in the world. i am honored that in this coming year, i have been asked to co- chair the high-level panel to build on one of the united nations greatest achievements with the millennium development goals. but it takes his work very seriously. -- britain takes this work very seriously. we need to focus on the building blocks that take countries and people from poverty to prosperity. in by these building blocks, i mean the absence of conflict and corruption, the presence of property rights, and the rule of law. we should never forget that for many in the world, the closest relative of poverty is injustice. development has never been just about eight or money. i am proud that britain is a country that keeps its promises to the poorest in our world. mr. president, a year ago, i

stood here and argue that the arab spring represented an unprecedented opportunity to advance peace, prosperity, and security. in one year on, some believe the arab spring is in danger of becoming an hour of the winter. they point to the riots on the streets, to syria's descent into a bloody civil war, the frustration of the lack of economic progress, and the emergence of new the elected islamist led government across the region. but i believe these people are in danger of drawing the wrong conclusion. today is not the time to turn back to keep the faith and to redouble our support for open societies and for people's demands for a job and the voice. yes, the path is challenging. but democracy is not and never has been about simply holding an election. it is not one person, one vote, once. it is about establishing the building blocks of true democracy.

the independence of the judiciary and the rule of law. defend the rights of the minority. the freedom of the media. a proper place for the army in society and the development of the affected institutions, political parties, and wider civil society. i am not nighties in believing that democracy alone has some magical healing power. if i am a liberal conservative, not a neo-conservative. if i respect the histories and traditions that each country has. i welcome steps taken in each country where reform is happening with the consent of the people. i know that every country takes its own path and that the progress will sometimes be slow. sometimes they achieve stability and success. others have endured decades in which the institutions of civil society would deliberately destroy.

political parties banned. free media abolished. the rule of law and twisted for the benefit of the few. we cannot expect the damage of debt is to be put right in a matter of months. but the opportunity for justice and the rule of law, the hunger for a job and a voice are not responsible for the problems in the region. in fact, quite the opposite. the building blocks of democracy, fair economies and open societies, are part of the solution -- not part of the problem. we at the united nations must of our efforts to support the people of these countries as they build their own democratic future. let me take the arguments in a turn. a first of all, there are those who say there has been too little progress had and the arab spring has produced few tangible improvements in people's lives. this is not right. look at libya since the fall of gaddafi. now plans to integrate the police and army.

none of this is to ignore the huge and so bring challenges that remain. the murder of ambassador chris stevens was a despicable act of terrorism, but the right response is to finish the work that chris stevens gave his life to. that is with the vast majority of libyans want to do. if we saw that so inspiring last weekend as they took to the streets, refusing to allow extremists to hijack their chance for democracy. the arabs rain has brought progress in egypt where they have a certain civilian control over the military. where a elections have brought new governments to power and in morocco where there is a new institution and a prime minister appointed on the basis of a popular vote for the first time. even further, somalia has taken the first step forward by electing a new president.

there has been progress and none of it would have come about without people standing up last year and demanding change or without this united nations having the courage to respond to their cries. second, there is the argument that the removal of dictators has somehow started to unleash a new wave of violence, extremism, and instability. some argue that in a volatile region, only an authoritarian strongman can maintain stability and security. even some argue that recent events prove that democracy in the middle east primps terrorism, not security and conflict, not peace. again, i believe we should reject this argument. i have no illusions about the danger that political transition can be exploited by violent extremists. i understand the importance of protecting people. britain is determined to work

with our allies to do this, but democracy and open societies are not the problem. the fact is, after decades, too many were prepared to tolerate dictators like gaddafi on the basis they would keep their people say at home and promote stability in the region and the wider world. in fact, neither of these things were true. not only were these dictators suppressing their people, ruling by control is not consent, if clambering but well and deny people their freedoms, they were funding terrorism overseas as well. the brutal dictatorships made the region more dangerous, not less. more dangerous because these regimes dealt with frustration at home by whipping up anger against their neighbors, against the west, against israel. people denied a job and a voice were given no alternative between dictatorship or extremism.

what was heartening about the events of the square was that the egyptian people found their voice and rejected this a false choice. they withheld their consent from a government that lost all legitimacy and instead chose a road that is more open and fair society. this road is not easy, but it is the right one and will make countries safer in the end. the next, there are those that will say that whatever may be achieved elsewhere, in syria, the arab spring has unleashed a vortexes with the potential to destroy the region. syria does present some profound challenges. they have got it the wrong way around. you cannot blame the people of a brutal dictator.

the responsibility is with the brutal dictator itself. just as his father did in the slaughter 30 years ago. not only in syria, he has concluded with those and i ran -- iran. moved forward to political transition and not give up the cause of freedom. the future for syria is a future without assad. it has to be based on mutual consent as was clearly agreed with the geneva in june. if anyone is in any doubt about the pain that assad has inflicted on his people, just look at the pictures. i have seen a children slaughtered. no, i do not think i will ever be ok again.

if there was, this child said, even 1% of humanity in the world, this would not happen. the blood of these young children is a terrible stain on this united nations. in particular, it is a stain on those who have failed to stand up to these atrocities and in some cases aided and abetted assad's regime of terror. we must now joined together to support a rapid, political transition. at the same time, no one can turn a deaf ear to the voices of suffering. security council members have a particular ability to support syria. britain, already the third biggest honor, is investing in humanitarian support and helping syrian children.

we look to our international partners to do more as well. of course, the arab spring has not removed overnight the profound economic challenges that these countries face. too many countries face falling investment, rising food prices, and bigger trade deficits. it is completely wrong to suggest that the arab spring has somehow created these problems. it is a challenging time for the world economy as a whole. there was never going to be an economic transformation overnights. a far from being successful, open market-based economies, many of these countries were be set by the vested interests, corruption, and unaccountable institutions. and this created a double problem. and not just a fragile economies, but worse, people who

were told they had experienced free enterprise and open markets when they had experienced nothing of the sort. we must help these countries on wind of this legacy of corruption, military expenditure they cannot afford, natural resources unfairly exploited, and what they suffered under for too long. while on the subject of stolen assets, we also have a responsibility to help these countries get back the stolen assets that are rightfully theirs, just as we returned and billions of dollars of assets to libya. it is simply not good enough that the egyptian people continue to be denied these assets long after mubarak is gone. today, i am announcing a new british task force to work with the egyptian government, to gather evidence, to work to change the law and to pursue the legal cases that will return the stolen money into its rightful owners, the egyptian people. finally, and perhaps, most challenging of all for western countries like mine, is the

argument that elections have simply opened the door to parties whose bodies are incompatible with truly open societies. my response to this is clear. we should respect the outcome of elections, but we should not compromise on our definition of what makes an open society. we should judge them by what they do and attest to this. will you entrust the rights of citizenship to your countrymen and women who do not share your specific political and religious view? you accept, unlike the dictators to replace, but you should never pervert the democratic process to hold onto power if you lose consent of the people you serve? off when you bought your commitments to protect the rule of law for all citizens? off to defend the rights of christians and minorities? and to allow women a full role in society in the economy and in politics? the truth is this. you cannot build strong economies, you cannot build open societies and inclusive political systems if you lockout

women. the eyes of the world today may be on the brothers, but the future is as much in the hands of their mothers, their sisters, and their doctors. it must also mean that their attempts to undermine the stability of other countries, or if they encourage terrorism instead of peace, if they promote conflict instead of partnership, we will oppose them. that is why iran will continue to face the full face of scrutiny from this united nations and spread a nuclear shadow across the world. it is also why they should not waver palestinians should have the chance to fulfill the same aspirations for a job at a voice as others in the region. to live in peace and security with their neighbors. so, of course, there are challenges, working with governments that have different views and traditions, but there is a fundamental difference between islam and extremism.

it is a great religion observed peacefully by over 1 billion people in our world. the extremism is a worked political ideology supported by a minority that seeks to hijack this great religion to gain respectability for its violent objectives. it is vital that we make this distinction. in turkey, we see a government with roots and islamic values. but one with democratic politics, an open economy, and a response supporting change in libya and elsewhere in the nation. i profoundly believe the same path as open to egypt.

we must help them to take it. democracy and is long can flourish along one side -- alongside one another. let us in a game with -- lesson date with a new democratic government so their success can strengthen democracy, not undermine it. mr. president, there is no doubt the we are in the midst of profound change and that many uncertainties lie ahead, but the building blocks of democracy, fair economies, are part of the solution -- not the problem. indeed, nothing has changed my fundamental condition. the arab spring represents a precious opportunity for people to realize their aspirations for a job, for a voice, and for a stake in their future. we come in this united nations,

must do everything we can to support them. thank you. [applause] >> see the first of the presidential debates next wednesday live on c-span and online at c-span.org. today, at debate at the texas tribune festival between mayor julian castro and senate candidates ted cruz. then today's washington journal, live with your phone calls. later, the federalist society previews the upcoming supreme court term. >> on this morning's boston journal, the head of the aerospace industries association of the automatic spending cuts scheduled to take effect a dented january and how they will affect defense contractors. then stephen farnsworth, a political science professor on campus 2012 west virginia's role as a swing state. also anthony sanders of george mason university on housing

prices, which hit a seven year high in july. live with the day's headlines and your phone calls, every morning on c-span at 7:00 eastern. >> i was always shocked as i think anybody who spends a lot of time around campaigns is. most cannot talk -- cannot explain why they did anything they were doing. how do you know that? how do you do that? at some point, they did it because they always did it that way. they had some said the rules not based in research. some of it around with some degree of skepticism -- so i went around with some degree of skepticism. as the learned about people doing these field experiments with them being adopted by people in the political world and learned more about the innovations of data and targeting based on it that

basically revolutionize campaigns in the last decade. in addition to these new forms of research, you have this cultural tension between a lot of the old practices that deter -- old practices and the new, empirical movement. >> more with the victory lap author on book tv saturday night at 10:00 eastern and sunday at 9:00 p.m. eastern and pacific on c-span2. >> i watched c-span every time. any time something is going on, i want to watch c-span because they typically have the best, most unbiased view of what is happening. so i love c-span. i watched them on tv or on line. i do not know that i have a

favorite show. for me, in this anytime i need to know what is going on, i know c-span will have the real story. >> he watches c-span on direct tv. c-span, created by america's cable company in 1979, brought to you as a public service by your television provider. >> two texas politicians, each topped it as the future of their parties, debated the economy, immigration, and other issues at the texas tribune in austin. democrat mayor julian castro was the keynote speaker at this year's democratic national convention. ted cruz is the republican candidate for the u.s. senate. this is an hour.

>> i hope you will enjoy as many conversations as you can. if you have phones and are not going to tweet or instagram this event, please turn them off. if you do, please use the has htag #tribunefest. our sponsors have done a wonderful thing for this community sponsoring this fits -- sponsor of this festival. i would like to give them a hand. [applause] there are microphones in the aisles and if you have questions, we have time for about 50 minutes or so. line up at the microphones at the appropriate time. let us get to it. it is my privilege to introduce the guests who are with us because of a single day this summer. july 31, 2012, began with the july 31, 2012, began with the announcement that